Lights Out: Animashaun Ameen
Where I’m from, I can only love
the people I love properly
in the absence of light.
In the absence of light, I’d
place my body gently on their body,
hold their hands in mine as our bodies
become a country of unified passion.
I’d watch as their mouth grow into stories
of how they survived the day. How a man
they can’t recognize groped them and called
them names they’d rather not remember. How he looked
them in the eye & in the same breath,
told them existence is a price too divine for them.
& we’d laugh about things that needed to be laughed about
& cry about things that needed to be watered down with tears.
& we’d make love in that gentle way lovers make love;
carefully and intentionally, like a well written poem.
& they’d cry a little bit into my shoulder, mourning
all the things we could have been but will never be bold enough to be.
& I’d cry a little bit into their skin, mourning everything we are because
with the break of dawn, we’d have to shed everything we are
& try and retrace our steps all over again – as lovers,
in the absence of light.
Animashaun Ameen is a Nigerian poet whose writings are mostly centered on memory, sexuality, and identity. His works have appeared/forthcoming in Salamander Mag, Lolwe, Bluestem Poetry, Agbowo, Foglifter Press, Roadrunner Review, and elsewhere. He lives and writes from Lagos, Nigeria. An oddball. A butterfly. He tweets @AmeenAnimashaun
Image (c) David Talley/Unsplash