Joined
Beside a bougainvillea & the hue of a sinking sun/
On a merry-go-round with the cathartic smiles drawn
on our bodies—
We drench these shells in the vigor of our cashmered
Bed/ becoming clichés in a story with the tongue of
a tainted love.
I was a torn & wandering heart before you whirled
into my flesh with the disquietude of your exuberance
& made me the scent of a Lotus.
Now I gift you an orgasm of clay—merging this sack
of brooding apostasies with the overkill dazzle of
your apparition.
My room is a drunk Disco
I sit out & watch constellations whenever they
appear like mirages from the usual paintings of the night,
Letting my body become an assay of brittleness.
I take two bottles of beer & a pail of ice-cream because,
I’m strong enough to drown my pain in sweet & sour.
This body you see is a wobbling worge of bravura &
Feigns the tremor you see in its eyes when it climbs
On an orgasm—it’s an empty Boulevard.
It seeks to be nuptial with the moon, & the breeze
& every nocturnal creature that’s a bloke—
It seeks to blazon exotic eroticism with its heart,
Its pleasure spot, in the most tipsy frenzy.
It wants to have its hands hanging from a cuff,
It wants to moan & pant & scream, to relive the days
it had lived weary & heartbroken & in an overkill love.
But it doesn’t find, all & none, so it tumbles over a tumbler
& boogies in it’s chamber of reflections
Becoming one with the loud bass & the dark comfort.
It jives to the progressions of a deafening pop,
It bachats then, it ballets, then it mambos before
it falls belly-up the ceiling & shoots the twelfth
shot of nicely iced tequila & draws the last
light from the ember in its burning cheroot.
I am this body under the moon’s spotlight, dancing
to the rhythms of the assonating shatters of my heart,
Knocking the lights out & putting this tipsy head to slumber.
What doesn’t kill a man makes him bad, &, boogie.
He is a writer, poet, voice coach and choreographer of the Ekpeye Kingdom. He’s Nigerian and a student of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka —studying to become a Biotechnologist. He has works featured in African writer, Ngiga review, Write now: A literary journal, forthcoming on Afritondo, Brittle paper and on. He has an obsession for romance and scary movies and is training to be a member of the industry. You can catch him on social media @ua_edwardson