Dear God, see me walking with my darkness.
See me at this corner with rotten pears in my mouth.
I have spoken so much about the leaking memories in my bones.
I have spoken so much about my worries that I wonder if anyone listens.
The tears I know are dogs howling through the woods at night.
Here is to tomorrow that translates my deductibles.
I have stored so much in poems.
I have been healed sometimes in poems.
This inn in my chest holding my nameable scars yearns for a garden of flowers.
Dear God, it’s such a long time since I saw myself in my language.
I have been asking around to know my people, to find our right hand.
Dear God, my pockets air my cuts before I can complain,
and in my eyes are torn sandals left behind by lovers.
I want to be together with my rabbits.
I want to be together with my shards.
Trying too hard to know is my crime. And I agree.
And my life has known so many brief days.
Trading skin for pretense is an artifact
I can’t relate with― this is infraction; this is punctured history.
And my bed keeps asking me, what is beautiful in a history’s blackout?
I am young for where I raise my body.
I am young for the paillette on my coat made from the future.
There is a hunger in my name.
There are dreams not finding me, not finding us.
I must say my people are not the most photographed on earth.
Dear God, I am my people. And sometimes my face gnaws at the light.
Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto
Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto is from Owerri-Nkworji in Nkwerre, Imo state, Nigeria and grew up between Germany and Nigeria. His work has appeared in Lunaris Review, AFREADA, Poet Lore, The Massachusetts Review, Frontier, Palette, Malahat Review, Southword Magazine, Vallum, Mud Season Review, Salamander, Strange Horizons, Anmly, Ake Review, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Spectacle Magazine, Ruminate, and elsewhere. @ChinuaEzenwa
