AYIYI JOEL, TPC XVI
Tongue
A snake slithers onto a rock to collect warmth
from the sun and then leaves in a heartbeat. I do not know
Where to say it emerged from or returned.
In a YouTube video, someone in the UK says something in English
but I could tell what milk fed that mouth. What water runs through
him. The accent in his mouth, enough music to sing his way
home. You could point to him and say he is no bastard. Away
from home yet his throat carries a whole continent alive.
His tongue does not fail him neither will his clan cast him as a rabid dog.
I, lost in my struggle, wrestle with a failing tongue.
My mouth, another Judas. Burning with the flames of questions
I do not know where to point to without dragging you into the fire.
My raiment’s shade is not enough map to point to you where
my people claims me as theirs. I, lost in the woods of this
world, walks under the heaviness of what I want and yet
does not recognize me. What I know will not save me
and that which will give me clothes in the cold
does not call me its own.
Darling,
All of my fears combined/taught me to run and hide—girl in red
I could tell you to let the mask fall off,
come out into the blinding rays with all that your face holds,
only if I wasn’t playacting myself. If I knew about all the raging
storms the sea of your body keeps bottled away from the shores.
Though there’s nothing like birdsong at noon at a countryside
home. Talk grasses, blazing red & yellow and pink petals.
Though there’s the azure skies with clouds shaped like animals.
The greens bowing in the soft breeze of the afternoon heat.
But you know that for beauty to break through the threshold
of the eyes, there must be the spark of life brewing in the body.
Though we fall & break each time a loved one leaves again.
Though we rehearse being alright because we do not want to hurt
The ones we hold with our hurt. We refuse to gift our ache
at each ask. But you should know, baby, we deserve to lose
ourselves. To just dance & dance & dance & dance & dance
until everything spins and the laughter rolls out and drown
the music out. To laugh so hard that tears squeezes through
The sides of the eyes. Soaked lashes. Heavy lids.
There’s so much grief in the world that you could
Only become your own sweet song in the face of your suffering.
You should come out of the room, boy. There’s the city-
Lights, loud and begging for your eyes. Girl in red’s If I Could Make
It Go Quiet will be there tomorrow. On the bus
There you will find your kin.
Ayiyi Joel, TPC XVI, is a young emerging poet from Edo State in Nigeria