Somewhere in Lagos,
The day wakes before you do.

Outside, it’s raining buckets and forgotten memories.
Tiny rivulets of water droplets
Skid down the glass of your kitchen window —
You’d tried to read the night before, but it’s hard
To get anything into your head,
When your heart is as empty as your stomach.
So instead, you lose yourself in the havoc that lays within.
But this chaos does not have a name, else it would become real. Palpable even.
You wonder if the only reason you
Live in such an insufferable moment is to make sense of it,
Because no one knows it, but you’re imploding.

You’re wondering if last week would be the last time you’d lose your house keys
— And yourself — in the suffocating streets of Yaba,
Or whether the next time it’d be your sanity instead.
You’re hungry, and numb — the kind that blurs out a lingering ache — and tired

And like the streets of Ijesatedo
When the rain gets too excited,
You flood.

Realisation nestles itself in your mind that you’ll never be fine
Because you self sabotage. And somehow that’s not okay.
But some day when you’ve found a way to detach yourself from the pain,
When you no longer resent yourself,
You would make an inspiring story of the present suffering you wallow in.

You look outside and as always, it does nothing to remind you of home.
Home lives too far away from the tiny box in Ajegunle, where you reside.
Home is a place of buried memories,
That’s why your heart perpetually yearns for something elusive.
Your life is a collection of stifling moments
Gathered from the farmlands of Ughiele to the bustling cities of Benin and Ikeja.

You look outside again,
Your tear stained eyes slightly swollen,
But your sigh is wistful when you think,
“Isn’t there just something awfully poetic about the rain?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Danielle Dolson on Unsplash