LOVE IS NOT FOR PERFECT PEOPLE

Darling,
Even if love puts on itself
a garment of perfect tunes
when it proceeds like music
from the beak of a lovebird,
making you feel like the girl on a swing
north & south switching positions
over your head and feet

Even though it heals you at first touch
and finds you smitten in unworthiness
when it awakens you to every dent
whose existence you were once oblivious,
Don’t get the message wrong
for love travels through the paths
of your rough edges to arrive the corridors
beholding the residence of your beauty

I know how love has drawn you to repentance
And as you have confessed your darkness
out of penitence, the straight lines
will not be set into undulations,
The gleeful skies shall not redress
in a new garment of haunting clouds
For love is not a clean bed with white sheets
that takes a reservation to our dirt
before it allows us to lay our backs

Love is a river that swallows sins
a body in love is like John the Baptist
daily calling out the stained
to a baptism of cleansing and rebirth
and a conversion to his own religion.

—————-

I FEEL YOUR PAINS

I can’t fit my feet into
your shoes. So I do
not know where it itches.
I haven’t walked on your
heels. So I do not know
how it feels to walk on
the roads that you walk.
I have not struggled to
unshackle those chains
that have for so long held
you captive. So I do not
know how it feels to fight
your battle.
When I look at you, I see
sweet laughter fermented
into sour smiles as you try
to turn your back against
the world. The scars you
carry are a souvenir of the
many injuries you incurred.
And although I haven’t
passed through your
experience, I can look into
your eyes and tell you
I feel your pains

—————-

LOVE IN A NEW LIGHT

I don’t want to love you like light, I want to kindle
A romance with the dark parts of your being, spread
Granules of my light on them and see how it glows.
I don’t want to love you like a rose, everybody knows
How to love a rose. I want to love you like a cactus, run
My hand down your spine and not judge you by your thorns
Because I know the face of your story in a way nobody does.

—————-
Poems © Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera
Image: Filipe Almeida on Unsplash