Agwam Kessington
FOR SLAVE, FOR COUNTRY.
After work, I will go home to a hyperactive dog and stale pizza, wipe the smile off my face and
wear back my gloom and existential crisis. On the tub, I shall scrub this country off my skin, peel
every anthem, every pledge, and wash off every filth, until i am able to call this body a home.
BITING THE FINGERS THAT FED ME.
i wish my country was a zoo supervised by vegetarians. that police didn't mean fear.
unexplained death. or extortion. i wish my people valued honesty, truth, & kindness more than
they loved burning gay men alive. here, art means poverty. unless you are spending seven
years studying a profession you might never practice, you're not serious about being successful.
in my house, women take the places of punching bags & men love to wear their ego on their
fists & when you die, people will paint lies on your casket — "he was such a good person!" — &
then they will have a plate of jollof rice in your honor.
CHROMATIC MEMORIES
One of these days you'll develop grey hair.
You'll glance your mom in her monochrome eyes
since all you have left are photos:
Little paper passages to recollections,
To accounts of insatiable experiences,
Two dimensional entries to what exactly used to be and may never be.
You will grasp them
however, you will not have the option to feel the skin
also, bends of your ex-lover's body,
The aftertaste of coffee on boring mornings,
Music breaking into your ears like crackers,
And the sex,
Oh, the sex
But on the other hand the wrinkles
portrayed around your dads eyelids
like little water, swells.
Really at that time will you understand
that memories are tunes we made
in the excursion of growing up
only a few of us can recall.
A few of us have consumed the paper
with which we once composed the verses,
a few of us have hung them up
on the dividers of our brains
also, put representative edges around their frames,
to make sure we don't lose them,
to make sure we remember.
In the end we are only pictures
scratched on the writing slate of those
whose adoration we are deserving of,
sometimes in a photo album
SOLITUDE: THE THERAPY SESSION
therapist: what troubles you?
irregular shapes. shabbily-folded napkins. unfinished kisses. four-leaf clovers.
therapist: is there anything you're good at?
getting hurt. not telling enough goodbyes. screaming into dampened pillows. forgetting to plant forget-me-nots into the wombs of lovers who sneak out of my bed in the early hours of the morning.
therapist: what scares you?
under-appreciated poetry, because it doesn't shimmer with metaphors.
therapist: is that all?
sometimes the best poems are bland, they do not astonish. metaphorically-barren. sometimes tasteless. but they are original.
therapist: [chuckles] like you?
heck no! i’m amazing — i think.
Agwam Kessington (he/him) is a budding writer and poet whose works are forthcoming in Mermaid Monthly, Celestite Poetry, Revolutionary Review, Cicada Lament, Paredolia Literary, and elsewhere. His twitter handle is @TheAgwam