Ruminating On What No Longer Binds Us

My face runs on the corners of this bed tracing the scent
of your body as a means of comforting myself with your absence.

Two nights ago, we were in this room playing in each other’s body.

We greased each other’s ears with a love conversation that stained
the room with lofty desires.

I remember you said you like the thick wall of my chest
that it is a safe house where you could run to and seek refuge.

In this room, I’m sitting with my head to unravel the mystery
of how a lover’s body dissolves from another lover’s body.

When the thoughts of you plaits me into a crescendo of loneliness, I run
out of breath and everything around me is half-dead and I’m half-dead too

trying to knit memories back as a garment of grief wearing my body.

Unlike the boy in the city who plucks flowers from his head & stuck its scent in the nostrils of his lover, I’m low & distant on such beauty.

My body is a republic of thorns blooming in the wilderness of longing.

I pour myself in an empty can mastering the language of water.
Loneliness inherits me & I become a home love once stayed.

By Emmanuel Ojeikhodion

Biography:

Emmanuel Ojeikhodion is a Nigerian-Edo emerging writer, poet & essayist. He writes to expunge his monstrous demons & documents the ripples from society. He has works published / forthcoming in Capsule Stories, The Lunch Bucket Brigade, Cons-cio Magazine, Chachalaca Review, Museum of Poetry, Déraciné Mag, Rigorous & elsewhere. He’s a finalist in the Best of Kindness Poetry contest 2020 from Origami Poems Project. He recently compiled his first Poetry chapbook & seeks a home for it. He’s a lover of Country & old Songs He tweets at @hermynuel.