By Ojo Olumide Emmanuel
PROMPT — If only ...
i remember you today;
i pour out a spoonful of ice-cream on the ground for you.
you're not dead but each time i'm reminded of you
i feel like feeding the ground every sweet thing i have made in my heart for you.
yesterday, i made cookies.
i looked around if i will find your mouth to slide it in.
your kisses are like the curtains revealing the beauty of paradise.
i have fed you twice in my poems & each ended with a kiss.
this poem ends with a kiss.
after you left; i didn't take it for dying.
i woke up today &
i spread my bedsheet on the floor.
there's a place i wrote how my love hangs a necklace on the moon.
i wrote "i love you to the moon."
i put some water on the kettle.
after steaming, i poured in on the bedsheet.
i wanted to sleep alone.
your name on my bed wakes me up every midnight for a conversation.
the language of the midnight is quite cryptic.
i touched my heart most time to be sure there's still a place where love can be hanged.
i found my heart brimming with songs of the sea.
i remember you today like the day i opened my mouth to spell "love in your ears" & all that came out were butterflies.
i saw the smiles on your face at that moment like the wind caressing a field of lilies. your smiles caressed my heart like a mother running her soft hands on the bums of her baby to cream his body.
this poem is not a love poem.
a love poem is like honey conjugal-blessing two pairs of cookies.
a broken poem is like a strain. you holla & holla and then quietude wears you in.
Ojo Olumide Emmanuel is a Nigerian Poet and Book Editor. He is the author of the Poetry Chapbook "Supplication for Years in Sands" (PolarsphereBooks, 2021). He lives in Minna (Nigeria).