I don’t

I don't know if I want to try again

if it's not you my love

you with the lovely smooth skin, the eyes that make my heart catch when you look

at me out of the corner of them, long eyelashes fluttering

a staccato rhythm I'm not used to

I don't know if I want to.

I don't know if I can try again

I think only of the absence of you

long nights 5 time zones away calling, and calling

on the hopeless phone

raging and raging as the internet beeped and the line disconnected

mornings, with the lack of you

craving

only the sweet Lagos dawns when we woke up together and you

thinking, I was asleep would

run your fingers through my hair

I don't know if I can

I don't know if I should try again

You, my love, when you finally arrived

are every mirror I have ever gazed at

and every rainbow seemed to foretell your presence

like a wind you, a storm that catches me

that carries me away from the shore

until I lay deep in the ocean and can see no more

is there ever anyone else I could love

as deep, so deeply!

could this, my stubborn heart betray me,

by loving anyone the way I love you?

What I know is this.

When I left you, the other half of myself

at that airport

that hot February harmattan evening

all the night was silent and yet

everything within me was

screaming

I don't want to love again. or try half hearted that some other man might be better

I want you.