It is getting colder in Lagos,
bringing out the sweaters and umbrellas
that do not fold, dragging in their bad luck with them.
Father preached never be a back door man.
He always did prefer Muddy Waters,
jumping over puddles skipping town
7th day of the 7th month but I’m born in September.
He left the french to my mother

It is getting colder in Lagos.
The backseat of my daddy’s Jetta,
racing raindrops down its window.
I do not want to go to school,
I never did, but for the girls,
red blouse under her pinafore.
Why do I feel funny in my plaid shorts?
Hide it with my jumper
hands up with the answer.

It is getting colder in Lagos.
School’s out the driver is waiting
to bring me to mummy, her office fridge full of treats
I have to share with my siblings, we leave her the bounty.
It is only half past 3, Mummy can’t leave
and Samurai Jack is on at 4.
Watching the clock making silly mistakes in my homework.
Correction, that is what parents are for.

It is getting colder in Lagos.
Harmattan means it hurts to smile.
I always did hate the taste of vaseline,
much rather that cherry lip gloss
which was always too much
in that one time we do not talk about,
because we are saving ourselves
holding another’s hands during grace.

It is getting colder in Lagos.
Mama, what do you want to be when you grow up?
I am yet another angry young man,
burning with the convictions of the high noon sun,
right before convectional rain grants a youth’s respite
from being so righteous and so wrong.
Learning to lose like my father’s summer
when my mother’s mother was still on the radio.
She is dead now.
Now there is no one to say a thousand alleluias for my soul.

And it’s started,
but not quite yet,
darkening the ground, darkened clouds.
Drops
that
only seem
to
miss
me.
Making it easier to deny
the heavens leak, all the things I can’t fix.
That part of me drowned in the Clyde,
drinking in the brown, holding on,
in the suit I never wear,
at least not since graduation,
..not since my disappointment was in latin,
….but now the writing is on the wall.
I wore it all summer sweating out my contrition,
breaking the surface.
The swimming lessons I skipped, the dusty piano I can not play.
What’s a child to do on a Saturday?
Grip gripping to nostalgia
isn’t 23 too young
or too old, to not know.
When it rains all the time in Lagos
I say global warming, you say GOD
you say I have too much learning, I know you’re wrong.
What does a bachelors get you anyway?
Into a good post graduate, still living out of a suitcase
that I don’t pack at least not anymore.
And for the first time in forever
..I’m home in September
….right before i get older.
God is still giving us the cold shoulder.

It is getting colder in Lagos.
Breathing in the dust,
that was at once us and will be again
in another summer’s rain.
but right now I keep forgetting to buy toothpaste,
till the morning pushing out
what always feels like its last,
laughing in the mirror
at the fool I was yesterday,
the fool I will be tomorrow.
What price will I have to pay?
How much would I have to borrow?

Washing the city off me, Lagos down the drain.

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Francis Odeyemi on Unsplash