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There’s a kind of separation hysterically laden in a body without bodies,
Every transmission in your voice, mother, pulls a soft knife to my throat,
At this moment, your memories are caresses with talons & fangs,
Here is the firewood, fire & altar, I am the sacrificial lamb
bleating with crimsoned syllables to silence.
Take me to the Golgotha in your arms, where I first laid
& mold me into your tears, let my body become a boat
& your retribution, a mariner.
I tried to speak, all these hard but useless pains,
But words choked me, where do I begin to tell you that, I’ve
Repented of the things you asked me to & I’ve chosen to
Find my beautiful sister who only lived in the portrait hung up on your walls.
Separation is a cross, it is the body’s broken mindmap, beyond which
I feel your absence, chained to my bones, mother, see how my eyes
Gone mundane, a pity to crystallize just in my darkroom for
One who is open to the sea inside, I must be sad containing separation’s decay
& your prunings.
Gideon Emmanuel/GSPERE (he/him) is a young poet, teacher, and lover of kids/nature, orphans and depressed people from Lagos, Nigeria. His poems have appeared in Eboquills, U_Rights Magazine, Arthut Anthology, Boardspeck, Street Child Anthology, and are forthcoming in Fiery Scribe Review. Find him on Facebook as Ubaha Gideon Emmanuel. Whenever he is not writing/reading, he is either cooking or smiling.