(after Samuel A. Adeyemi’s Applying Psalms 121 to a Gentile)
Few years ago, I commenced diluting
my emotions, separating every constituents
once a part of my being. I x-ray
my heart, viewing the pumps–the gasoline,
that feeds the hormones its understanding
of what’s felt between. My head says
affections have you drenched, but here
I die of thirst. Yesterday, I tried to rename
love in my dialect. The impracticality was
quite glaring. Maybe, I am oblivious to the
language equilibrium it possesses. I wrapped
around my tongue these letters, to acquaint
my taste buds with the juice of its
fluency. Intertwined beneath layers of decayed
words, swiftly dancing to the tune of the cold
harmattan wind. Travelling with her to a city
too much like heaven. Too unlike the dandelions
hanging in my windpipe. As if to say: look,
I am thine lethal & therapeutic dose. How do I
say my therapeutic index hangs on the shoulders
of a thing I cannot see nor touch? & I pray that
I kiss twilight soon enough for my soul to drink
of its bliss.
Joshua Effiong
is a Nigerian writer and a lover of literature. He is an author of a poetry chapbook, Autopsy of Things Left Unnamed. When he is not writing, he is reading, watching movies and listening to music. An undergraduate of Science Laboratory Technology, he lives in Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria where he writes from. You can find him on Instagram @josh.effiong and twitter @JoshEffiong.