ISSUE V

Marvellous Igwe

Redless

Again, another rain. Again, another black

blooded night. 

Come outside, sit with me. Let us play a game

where we pretend 

this barren sky is ripe with beautiful stars. 

That all the stars we think we cannot see are

there, only miscarried. 

How I have been like them, miscarried

throughout my life. 

First the country was a miscarriage. How then

could I be whole? 

How then could anything other than a dirge

be found welling 

in my mouth? It is very shocking how much

sadness a body 

can contain. 

Again, I am trying to pen a poem simply

about rain, 

and failing. 

And finding myself wading through the flood

of my elegy. 

The water creeping, seeping unto every page. 

I mean, I was in the water. I mean, I was the

water. 

But let us stop the pretence. Forget me, this

sad, depressed boy. 

Forget me, and this sad poem. Instead, focus

on this night 

so white with lightning. So brilliant, like day,

like blue ink upon 

white paper. 

You do not need to search for diamonds in

the sky. They are here, 

just wait. Watch the moment the lightning

touches the rain. 

Watch how, after the storm, the world had

gone soft-skinned, 

had glowed a soft, ethereal blue. 

I can be like the world. 

I can pass through this country, through its

scarlet womb of hell. 

And come out slick, blue, reborn. 

Marvellous Mmesomachi Igwe is a budding poet from Port Harcourt, Nigeria. He has been published in Arts Lounge NYC, African Writer Mag, Lion and Lilac, Ta Adesa, amongst others. You can find him daydreaming, listening to his favorite singer Lana del Rey, or writing about limerence, melancholia and the mundanities of existing. He tweets @mesomaccius.