dear diary is the Saddest Thing You Will Write on a Long Quiet Night
by Anthony Okpunor
these days i dine alone. the world
is at the other side, staring through a
wet window. somewhere between we
still do not meet, but for poems.
but for birds that fly into your throat
when you fall asleep.
i wrote all of those poems
& made them fly.
because i’m here, and i want
to wish you one of
these lone stars.
the stenographer wrote your
name on the cover page of his
diary, we almost missed it.
that day all we needed was
someone to push us into the wind,
& call us freedom.
see how glass doors make us
write these sad poems?
see how rain comes & knows
the softest part of two bodies?
the rain will remind us of days
& slow dances, how to move lightning
from a lover’s eyes to their tongue.
today i’m awake and something seams
a rising sun to my window.
i am sorry we all
die sometime.
let’s make a map of thirst & young.
let’s see where we stop being thirteen.
let us tune this body out &
feel the whole world
break free for us.
the signs will only come for the
flesh, not us.
let’s sow our knees
to the hands of a clock.
why do we only laugh sometimes?
have you asked why a
clown will choose your happiness
over theirs?
i want to be a clown &
eat up the butter in your hair.
call me names, dreams
you try to imagine,
i promise to know you
final notes of the song.
i will hear of birds hours after
you sing the walls to sleep.
we can be voyagers, you see.
i will keep throwing
stones into a river till
i’m old.
this way there is a castle
at the bottom of
the ocean for us.
there will be sand, salt
and hunger; you being
a soloist filled with
names of [ ].
Source: From the Isolation Issue (September 2020)
dear diary is the Saddest Thing You Will Write on a Long Quiet Night
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ANTHONY OKPUNOR is an emerging Nigerian writer who discovered poetry and writing in general, as a better form of self-expression. He lives and writes from Asaba in Delta State. He is a student of the University of Benin at the time. He was shortlisted for the 2019 Nigerian Student Poetry Prize. He was also shortlisted for the SEVHAGE/Angya Poetry Prize 2019. He emerged as winner of the 2019 Kreative Diadem Annual Creative Writing Contest (poetry category). He was a finalist for the 2020 Palette Spotlight Poetry Award. His works have appeared on online platforms including African Writer, Praxis Magazine and Rattle.
