MATCHBOX

you are the miracle that walks me upon the sea of love

how much time do I have left, before I begin to sink?

your face has become a mural on the walls of my heart

thoughts of you punctuate my activities like the distant

song of the lyrebird. I have become your match, and yet

a candlelight – you, a lantern, when the room goes dark

an aisle that leads to the idol in your eyes. My obsession.

Do not smile, my love, lest I burn into ashes. You are a matchbox.

You hold my pieces together and yet, to show how much I love you

I must burn, one stick at a time. A strike to a tick on your checklist.

How much time do I have left, my love? How many more candles

Would light up this room into a chandelier, the shape of your heart?

BOY’S LESSON ON GROWING UP WITH HIS SISTERS.

                        

In order to flower, first, you’ll die

And then, you’ll bud with excruciating pains;

Needles in the stomach, fire around your torsos.

There’ll come the cooling, rejuvenating rains

And you’ll forget how to cry,

How to transit from a chorus to many solos.

Until it comes around again, the season when you give birth to blood –

Writhing, wanting, not wanting, begging God, emptying, becoming woman.

The boy must learn how to say sorry,

or just pretend he didn’t see the blood.

Kelechukwu Samuel Ojile studies Pure and Industrial Chemistry in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka at the time. He is a creative/content writer, graphic designer and teacher. His writings explores the connectedness of man regardless of race, sex and geography. His works can be read on PoeticAfrica (Journey), Litround magazine, Rough Diamond poetry (November), There Was a Man and Arrows of Words (both; anthologies in honour of Chinua Achebe) and elsewhere. He was first runner-up in the Benue Prize Short Stories, 2020 and second runner-up in the Charles Wesley Poetry Prize, 2021.