I take rejection as someone blowing a bugle in my ear to wake me up and get going, rather than retreat. — Sylvester Stallone

 

Beloved: My sweetheart, how has your heart been for all this while?
Poet: Holy emptiness. Divine allurement. Dearth of distress.
Beloved: What if I am back to soften your dried lips today?
Poet: [Hands folded, mouth gaped, and voice hissed]
Beloved: Don’t you want to be with me again?
Poet: Thinking [I am really in need of a lover, a heart to call my half.]
Beloved: Let your tongue dance to the rhythm of my voice, baby.
Poet: [Hissed] What are you supposed to mean by calling me a baby?
Beloved: [Hummed] I mean, you are my heartbeat, is it not?
Poet: [Laughed widely] Foolhardiness is at its core.
Beloved: Excuse me, what does this word connote?
Poet: Maybe you run out of conscience. Have you ever seen a magazine that changed rejection into acceptance? A breakfast, once served, will most likely be consumed in pain.
Beloved: Are you okay, baby?
Poet: Dewdrop of loneliness, heart burning, and love? No, not at all. Astagfirullah.
Beloved: Don’t you feel frustrated and depressed to be single after you once knew the taste of my lips?
Poet: What depression else have I never planted and harvested?
Beloved: Do you mean you don’t feel sorry to let me go?
Poet: [Hissed] Behold! I was broken seven days in a row with a blood-sucking rejection from Eunoia Review, and I still smile.
Beloved: Baby, you get no happiness. Please give me a second chance to ruin you with joy.
Poet: I don’t think feathers are of use to a caged bird.
Beloved: I didn’t get you, baby.
Poet: My hand is mine; my hand is joy; my hand is grief; and my hand is a therapist.
Beloved: Should a farmyard be left without plants?
Poet: Bush fallowing is essential for reviving fertility.
Beloved: Please, if you are a human and not a spirit, tell me what makes you happy, baby.
Poet: Rewrite the alphabets of my name on Google; you will see me with diamonds shining brighter than the sun.
Beloved: What?
Poet: Yes! Because Aôndona and Umeji have been there within my cervical vertebrae, there is nothing to stop me from serving.
Beloved: Please, I am not at home with this strange language.
Poet: [Smiled] I mean, I have a celestial body; I am a star boy—the winner of the Nigeria Prize for Teen Authors (2024).
Beloved: [Hissed] What is so special about this?
Poet: Well, none of the veins I call my family have ever become poets in Hilltop collections.
Beloved: Now that you don’t want to be mine, what do you want me to do?
Poet: I love you so much to leave me alone; let me breathe the air of creativity until I find my voice in Eunoia Review’s song.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by reza shayestehpour on Unsplash