i was born in the last month of the year;

december, the last door which opens into
mild revelries. one my mother fondled
with her heart until it bloomed into a garden.
the moon kissed my feet, singing its own
asphyxiation, christening its ghost. mirrors.

i was born in between my mother’s awe

for sunshine & the lamp holding the flame
waning like my father’s last hope for water.
but i am painting my story on the clouds,
with colours, with synesthesia, & with a little
love, with much disbelief & a little astrology.

say morning. say glory. say fireflies. & dreams

so vast, so vast. the morning mist haloing
the sun. the harmattan. & these echoes
i have learned to reinvent into a softer music;
my hands morphing into violins each time
i deep them into water. but do i just sit beside

these shadows measuring my pain in iambics?

the sepia, the petrichor; memory: steeped,
the scent of rain; nights choired by angels
singing of roots beneath the shoresands.
singing of my origin. love. the black heaven.
& that, that is what the pianist says, perhaps.

i have grown to love my delirium, this thirst

for the little things. the books, the music.
& how it leaves me submerged in the blue waters
of the music, in the boat where i am a seraph,
wingless, sunburnt, as my grandfathers, blind
with the light of their own wooden knowledge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Rajesh Rajput on Unsplash