All that we were was built on uncertainties;
you, burning
me, running
Our hearts racing in different directions but
Our souls: two countries unified by desire.
Somewhere, a boy is holding a paintbrush
& drowning himself in colours. A bright red
crossing over a stroke of black crossing over
everything we were afraid to be. I am running again
But this time, I am running towards what’s left of you.
My hands are too small to hold everything I want
& everything I want is you. You are slipping
through my fingers, too.
These days, I am becoming short of breath.
A Doctor said it’s my asthma returning but I know
There’s a man drowning inside my stomach &
I do not know how to save him. This is to say
My body is filled with more water than it can
Possibly hold. This to say my body is filled with
All the dreams you owned but couldn’t stay long
enough to taste. & I am safeguarding all your
dreams in the depth of my body. & I am burning,
Too. & this smoke is choking me.
They say it’s easy to find our kind of love
Hiding inside cracked walls:
you, watching
me, burning.
Our souls two countries unified in nothingness.
Like boys who were crucified for being foolish
Enough to love, we, too, danced too close to the fire.
& like an iron bird stupid enough to believe it could
Sweep the sky, reality came crashing hard on our heads.
About the author: Animashaun Ameen is a not-entirely-straight Nigerian poet and essayist. His writings are mostly centered on memory, sexuality, and identity. His works have appeared/forthcoming in The Drinking Gourd, Roadrunner Review, Stone of Madness Press, Perhappened Magazine, EroGospel, and elsewhere. He lives and writes from Lagos, Nigeria. An oddball. A butterfly.
Find Ameen on Twitter.