By Olabisi Abiodun Akinwale:
Butterflies- Day 24
Chemistry
-after reading warsan shire
you wear your charisma like an oleku dress
scaling your body through fumes & smoke & I cannot
help but make nest of the vapour from your charms
& you cannot help but walk slower in my head
like someone naming flowers after raindrops,
like a shadow skeptical of walking into light.
& I do not think it’s cruel
how you conflict my body with silence
& dry my throat with longing for a drop of your voice,
I do not think it’s fatal
how I fall over & over like a tumbling bulb
in every turbulence carving your face out of nothing,
because you do not call cruel what love cull out of a soul
& plant on your skin as bulletproof from lonely,
as refuge from the blasphemy that untwines a body & its reflection,
& you do not call fatal the fall that finds you in another
as a story where demons are drowned in phone calls
& an alto voice that have survived a hundred breaks.
baby, I think it is chemistry,
– [an attraction between bodies seeking God in a whirlwind]
how a full moon brawls out of butterflies when you’re in my arms
& what transpires when night stars kiss
& your giggles welcome my dark & grey humor home,
when you call my name & a songbird answers in my voice.
© Olabisi Abiodun Akinwale
Undiluted Poet
#undilutedpoetry