VISITING A PAST SELF

My father broke his knees into water
filled himself with self love with words
more than enough
to cleanse the tears of a sad man.
At night, he would sit on a kopje
& watch through his windowless heart
the world he wanted but never was.
The man who walks into a half open door
to seek the beginning of things,
which is lost that can never be regained.
In someone else’s life, a hungry wolf lies down
thinking not about his hunger,
but how to tear his own body apart.
He thinks of how to tell
the nervous boy in front of him
a little about his past self. How he was still human
before God wiped away
the lilacs on his chest
& replaced them with fur.
Because he has the words in him,
but cannot speak the language.
He stood up quietly
and started walking away. He kept walking
until he became the night
leaving no dew of yesterday behind.
The body only searches,
but the mind knows what it is looking for.
We know this reality
but don’t know why our wanting
never get enough of what it wants.
Tonight, I am drinking myself again
I am remembering my mother’s final words esetoju awon omomi
I am remembering the boy
who washed his face in a pool of tears some years ago.
It is easy to forgive the past
but it is harder to forget.
How we left behind the house
we used to live. How everything
we thought was dead did not die
but sprout itself back to life.