Response to The Achings that Demand an Eye

Philip Chijioke

i begin with a room begging for voice. a hand pining
to feel her shadow pinned on a wall. a song squeezing
through tired guitar strings like a thief folding
his conscience. i begin with a hole asking for light.
i begin with you. there is a street in your body
where a boy draws his breath from the blood
of his broken ankle. everybody knows the language
of a breaking bone. we are listening, we understand
the lexicon. this is how the world cares: we needle,
sigh into music—that, a sign of a dying bird.
we cosplay your nightmares & display your secret
achings to scatter our teeth into laughter.
say everybody is a horse with a knife stuck
in his throat. this is the turnstile we walk through,
the room emptied of pity. there is no flower
in this wrong room to adore, no costume to don
a blade, to turn a gun into a guitar. in this aging city
burning in the body of a child, teach me to unkindle
the burnt, to soothe this ache, to untwist the blade
churning in the socket where mercy’s eye once dwelled.

BIO:
Philip Chijioke Abonyi is a writer from Enugu State, Nigeria. He won Brigitte Poirson Literature Prize, in 2022, and the Archipelago Poetry Competition, 2023. He was shortlisted in different poetry competitions including Eriata Abhobor Poetry Prize, in 2019. His works have appeared in African writer's magazines, Agape Review, Eve magazine, Better than Starbucks Magazine, Praxis magazine, Typehouse magazine, Icefloe Press, Art Lounge Journal, Synchronized Chaos Magazine, Ebedi review, Nantygreens, and elsewhere. Twitter handle: @philipcabonyi