Three Poems by Abiodun Salako

 

Boy Who Appears As Wax, Melting

 

At 20, I learn my body is a candle

                half burnt in some way/

everywhere I go, I leave a trail of wax

            of white skin and mesh bones/ 

I wing in my hands in the wind and it melts/

                                     when we talk of love,

we mean that stripping away is being/

      in the summer, I am kissing a girl for the first time/

I am that girl/ I am that kiss/ I am/

   I am gathering the meaning of lips like the harvest of apples;

I didn't understand the meaning of brittle

       until I tried crying my grandmother back to life/

I cannot quite say which part of me is moving/

                    above or below/ within or without

each night, I bring a sacrifice home to symbolise my wax/

                    or a remembrance of it

I am not the only one who does this/

      I have seen my father in the dead of night dragging a deer into the room/

the next day, I thought my father was someone else/

      after bleaching a 12 year old smile at the dinner table

my mother says she doesn't know who I am anymore/

       I fold back into the shrill of being born/

Tell me, can one love a thing

      without recognising what it is?

 __

Abiodun Salako is a Nigerian Broadcaster & Copywriter. In his spare time, he daydreams of Eden. His poems have appeared in Africanwriter, WriteNowLit, Dwarts, ThespeakingHeart, LocalTrainMag, SledgehammerLit and elsewhere. He writes from Lagos, Nigeria. Say cheerio to him on twitter @i_amseawater and IG @Iam_seawater.