A BOY EATS HIS LOVER ON WATER
tethered to these shores, I bury my footprints forever,
racing to my lover’s erasure, nostalgia for warmth,
his heart is a life jacket for a drowning soul .
his ghost still walks the stretch of this beach,
calls me out for a leisurely dip into water.
I pile demise on my head as ashes & sprinkle evenly,
for droppings to gather round my feet.
I watch his ghost slowly ease into the sea,
returning to where death once plucked him.
I am here as witness to reunion with mother sea,
clasped hands accommodate acceptance,
tender about the past, he laughs off grief,
home is never a place to invest in pain.
I rejoin brother as his eyes linger around the sea,
for the coming of tides is how he proclaims movement,
like fleshed waves, he will slam into the deep.
I levitate his body, afloat with courage,
I bless this sacrifice by swallowing the entirety of his pain,
proclaiming his feet will kiss earth again,
we claw our way into a second loving.
By Michael Akuchie
Biography:
Michael Akuchie is a Nigerian young adult writer. His work is on Barren Magazine, Anti-Heroin Chic, Neologism Poetry Journal, Mojave Heart and elsewhere. He is @Michael_Akuchie on Twitter
