Cicatrix

By Chinedu Gospel

For Mariam

every time / my name escapes / from your windpipe / it’s as if I’ve been drowning / inside your air sacs / all my life / & you’ve been pushing me out / like carbon dioxide / how the clouds shove / the rain unto the earth / & then / you breathe fine / when my lips are stuck / halfway into your skull / you want to heal / you’re afraid of losing me / & I haul you deep into love / the way gravity pulls a man / until he’s six feet beneath / I show you how red it is / & yet again / you’re refilled / with fresh haemoglobin / preparing for a deeper dive / & you don’t mind / that your heart is ruptured / that you’ve been / on this journey / again & again / & like the Titanic found / & unrepaired / you keep capsizing every time / but / you are willing / to sink again / your fins feeble as watered balloons / again / you don’t mind sinking / just to taste / the redness ebbing through my valves / head-down / you give the air a straight-cut / your eyes shut / & your instinct carving partitions / across the chambers of your heart / each chamber / hollowed out / & echoing the storms / that once unmade you / firstly / you land / on duckweeds / floating / unsure of what to do / submerge? / upthrust? / all colours of love above the sea / you twirl & twirl / around the circumference / where your body / had been / love is red / & red is pain / & anger / & violence / & the men who have known / your biology / now you’ re unsure of where to be / once again / you’re doubting me / my name stuck / in your lungs / you / suffocating

BIO:
Chinedu Gospel is a young Nigerian Poet. He writes from Anambra. His works have appeared or are forthcoming in Nantygreens, Praxis magazine, Rising Phoenix, Eboquills, African writer, Fahmidan journal among others. He tweets @gospel79070806