After Abdulrazaq Salihu

 

What if I tell you night falls into songs because your name is a lyric in my head; that I sing your name until dawn because every day breaks towards your smile, towards your warm chest, towards the nectar on your lips? I yearn for your face, an anodyne that curbs my pains on days loneliness runs through my veins like cobra venom. Today, I write to you flowers & rainbows because I have learned that to love is to be the rain that falls without expecting to rise; you fall for my thirst, my lust, you fall into the sea for me o’ sea goddess, & because the world said everything in love must be buoyant like a feather, but I choose to be stone or titanic for your sake. I want to dissolve into you, like water into water until nothing could separate us, not even the words that sieve love out of a body. That every night, I gather your face in my head & I have learned to love even the dark because you never leave my head— you ignite when the room gets darker, I light when I see the gap between your teeth; a gate that reveals the sweetness in your tongue; in your smile. I want to tell the world how you’ve been an umbrella on days the sun scorches. I want to tell the world how I yearn for your hug like butterflies to flowers. I want to tell the world how your name sparks a song on my tongue, how I have learned your face like a language & how I promise to be your shadow until the sun goes down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Yoksel Zok on Unsplash