Incase we don’t have tomorrow,
I want you to know
Today is the best day of my life
Simply because I know you exist
In a space where I can call home.
A
Just Incase.
Living With An Emotional Deficiency – I.
I.
How best can I explain,
That I struggle with vulnerability,
Like people struggle with addiction.
There are days I cry about my inability to connect,
About ‘dismissal’ being my immediate response.
I hurt when my body jerks back once in contact with another,
Knowing it is impossible for mammals to survive without body contact.
But how do I change this?
A.
I’m Getting Help.
You called me guarded,
And I laughed while subtly denying it.
But I lied. That shit was true.
Because if it wasn’t,
I would have laid my heart out on the table.
I would have pinpointed areas where it hurt,
Acres of muscle dead from the pain,
Incapable of permitting planted love to grow.
It rejected grains of affection intended to germinate into love.
I would have allowed my deepest desires to roll off the top of my tongue,
Learned to relish in compliments;
Those said and sung,
Whispered and typed out.
Maybe we wouldn’t be here.
But my fingers twitch and my jaws clench
At the thought of openness,
The idea of vulnerability.
Confronted with the fact that I still consider you my serenity.
Home away from home,
A sweet relief,
You, my dear, are my honeycomb.
-I’m getting help so I can get you
A.
Unspoken Requests.
Hold me close and teach me how to count to 10 one more time
Like you taught me to heal,
From pain in its prime.
Like you taught me to crawl,
Through my heart break and into my soul
Withholding the release of my salty waterfall.
So I hold back my tears,
For as long as is required.
While my heart grows weary and my eyes become tired,
I beg of you to hold my hands one last time,
Just teach me how to cross my t’s and dot my i’s.
A.
Not Today.
I can feel potential love slowly slipping away
But I’m too tired, too weak
Too scared to convince it to stay.
A.
Tough Love.
Over here, we don’t say I love you
Or ask about feelings like this was some sort of interview.
We don’t cry, not publicly.
We don’t speak comforting words, not literally.
We can’t be supportive, not emotionally,
So I apologise,
For learning to love differently.
I learned that even in love, we got to be tough.
So I would stay awake for as long as insomnia torments you,
And I would hold your hand while you walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
In situations where you feel small, I would bend over and be your foot stool.
In your temporary defeats, I would sing you praises so loud your enemies would be forced to learn the lyrics.
I would honour and uphold, cater to you and serve.
I would pour in all of my energy, including what’s in my reserve.
But I cannot cry when you cry,
Or pour out my heart, even on the days when I try.
So again, I’m sorry,
Because I can only give what I know
And I’ve only ever known tough love.
A.
Issa Sonnet.
He didn’t just call me beautiful first
He called me interesting
Not once did I try to decipher his level of thirst
Not once did I stop listening
To perfectly structured sentences
Beautiful music to these ears
Because for as long as his voice is on my list of preferences
My soul inherently hears
My body willingly submits
Without an ounce of reluctance
Not a single bone resists
While in this space of acceptance
I couldn’t just call him persistent
So, I called him brilliant
Love,
A
x
My Kind Of Love.
My kind of love doesn’t live in happy places
Nor in the hearts of happy people
Nor in the 4 corners of a happy home
It grows out in the dark trenches
Spreads across these bloody battle fields
It’s the kind found in the hearts of hard wired soldiers.
My kind of love only occupies a place of emptiness
A grieving widow in the hands of her in laws
A hurting wife at the mercy of her husbands’ infidelity
These young couples, more toxic than poison
It’s not the type of love that’s promised till infinity.
My kind of love doesn’t reside in the hearts of misogynists
Or in the cracks present in masculinity, all so fragile
It cannot coexist with lack of equality
Or a sense of entitlement due to mere ethnicity
It’s the kind of love that may never exist.
Love,
A
X
Welcome.
You wear your heart on your sleeve
And I don’t blame you
It’s the joy of ignorance
Lack of experience
Naïveté in its purest form
I envy that
I envy you
I will continue to envy you
Until your body begins to slowly wither
As these men pass through welcoming doors
Only to take from you
Only to acquire
Pieces of your innocence
Pieces of your heart
Pieces of love
That you will swear never to give again
I want to but, I can’t save you
I can only welcome you to my reality
Love,
A
x
Persistence.
I’ll keep refuelling this worn out battleship,
Until you promise to love me the right way,
Until you believe that lie.
I’ll keep pouring life into our relationship,
Until I begin to fade away,
Until I begin to die.
Love,
A
x
Akunna Ezekwem 