Portrait of Solitude as a Cracked Mirror
my ears enter into a night of scorching rhythm; the rain has stopped and the lost toads are here. this is how it starts, drowning myself in a house furnished with silence and watching my
own body murmurs into a mess like a snail seeking a new shell. they said they’ve seen how leaves were murdered on their tree and refuse to turn yellowish on sand — how a dark curtain draws
itself into the conjugation of light without a ray. tell me the way a body overloaded with solitude like mine, can stay in the bud of life. i have been sleeping all day, dreaming of rotten onions. say, it’s rough
for a girl of nine to be robbed of her teddy, family and heart. the only thing left is a cracked mirror.
I swear to God, I like Viwali
After Ejiro Elizabeth’s “I could be a lover too when I am not a prerequisite”.
The woman on the restaurant chair thinks I don’t like Viwali, not for its taste, but for its style of lovers folding their breath in each other’s eyes for a sip.
I call it a rare blessing,
this hole I dug up for myself, I remain a rough-skinned loner who throws her energy around her little compound.
My mind is a home for innumerable ideas squeezing themselves into particles of pleads —to cloth them with garments of possibility. I never touched one.
The persistent flogs of fear made me this way, a telescope of negligence. They leave me burying my vulnerabilities under my pillow in my room like holy books and dancing at ceremonies.
Still, I call them a rare blessing.
In a hurry to work every day, street kids wave their teeny hands at me, some make me paper boats— an old man even baked cookies for babies I do not have.
Yeah, I know, I am weird. I am 36 —I take boiled fish four times a day in only-me size plates while the dog barks at me.
Still, I call them a rare blessing.
And in all these lonely wars of sanity, swears, I also love to see flowers in my room, especially those ones plucked by a lover, I hope to live my life with flavors my tongue can taste.
To be gentle in a way that my blood can call me by name.
To be blessed in tenderness as water, to be beautiful in the heart for the space of a lover’s hand.
I also wish for a day full of dance, potatoes and cups of Viwali.
Viwali– a yellowish traditional drink usually for two lovers with two drinking straws.
Old Things
“I want to know who made love so wrong” – Romeo Oriogun
I don’t want to wake to the reality that you are gone. I have been gathering
butterflies all these years, to show you that I love you one-hundred times
and again. That night, It was raining, and you were red like a hot metal, and you
couldn’t raise your head to my eyes while I skinned the oranges, and you
couldn’t stamp your feet on the kitchen floor and say “baby, be quick”. You
slammed the door in my face, and I thought you went for a cup of coffee.
My days and nights go by without you —no new vase —no new flowers —
no fresh pekoe to rouse me to morning.
Fatihah Quadri Eniola is a seventeen-year-old Nigerian poet, creative writer, and lover of cinematography. She is a member of HCAF (Hilltop creative arts foundation) and Nibstears Poetry Cave. She has contributed a number of intricately constructed poems to literary journals including Kalahari Review, Art Lounge, Beatnik Cowboy, Notion press, World Voices magazine, De Curated, Syncronized Chaos and elsewhere. She lives with a very cute cat, Honiy.
Featured Image by Noah Buscher on Unsplash
