MEN MOLD BREASTS LIKE CLAY

Breasts look down when they’ve died.
Show not a man the church where clay prays, the soil where clay worships, the body where clay fasts, the building where clay speaks in tongues.
He will come swift, he will come loading armoured tanks, revolvers, rifles like world war broke out to claim everything, own everything, control everything and leave you dangling, hanging and sleeping upside down like bats who cry all night.
Show not a man the road to the soil holding your clay, he will bring all his tools, stools, wools and build home on it, build dreams on it to his own satisfaction and leave you hanging with war like Pakistan, Iran and Libya.
Nectars taste bitter when they’ve died.
Men mold breasts like clay shaping and reshaping them to their own taste.
Breasts are the doorbell used for ringing a girl’s heart out, for stopping her heart from beating.
Your breasts aren’t safe men raid it, love it. stare at it to leave it hanging on the roof.
Breasts are clay waiting to break into tears that cannot be consoled.
Milk are the tears of breasts when they’ve died, it looks thicker, stronger because of the pains of pressing and touching.
That is the story of men that women hate to hear, the history of men that you should accept and swallow like a pill of truth.
Men know how to mold breasts into a nightmare, into an apology, into a cosmology of biology.
Men know how to pack clay into emptiness; they know how to leave molds on it.
He will add too much water and complain of flooding, he will add too much pain and complain of pleasure, he will add too much force and complain of winds, he will add too much fire and complain of ashes, he will add too much muscles and complain of circles, he will complain about everything he left behind while molding and shaping.
Men mold breasts like clay leaving them hanging, bare and deserted like Niger delta, oil wells, oil rigs with heart spillage and blood spillage.
Your right breast is the wrong one, the left the misfit because he forgot their positions when you opened your body and became naked to open the door to the oldest ict library.
The nakedness of a woman will make you forget, feel guilty of the losses that follow from removing your ribs to form hers, of getting silenced into coma to complete her comma sign, of getting drugged into oblivion to complete hers as a wonder.
Men mold breasts like clay using tools to create curves into sizes and shapes. They turn your body into a bakery where the fate of flowers and yeast becomes bread of different lengths and widths.
Men are bakers with rough whiskers like rats.
You stood on her lap to forget your name, to forget your birthday, to forget your parents, to forget families, to forget everything that truly loves you.
You forgot everything to see the building where histories are made, where histories are changed, where forces are wrought, where time stops, where hearts stop, where men are broken, where men fall molding breasts through force.
Did you know how much blood was pumped into your penis to stop your heart from flying away from your chest when her breasts caught fire under your body to make terracotta?
He’s not Mozart he cannot mold it into a David,
He’s not Pablo he cannot paint it back after it has rusted.
Did you know how much damage he did to your body to call it love?

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WHAT YOU OWN

If you can live inside fire you cannot die.
Home is what you own.
I’m tired of people who keep saying nobody is home to forget what it truly means.
Home lives in your body.
Sleep, that’s how you float on fire to break the coat of darkness.
Home has a coat of arms designed on its skin like a tattoo with pictures of love.
Taboo isn’t a tattoo you wear to visit home without peeling to death,
Death is taboo everywhere.
Fire doesn’t burn at home; fear hires it. Fire doesn’t kill at home; fear hires it. Fire doesn’t swallow at home; fear invites it.
I know you believe fire burns with air, you’re wrong. Fire burns with fear, burns with the acid you pour onto its knife to peel your bodies away.
I’ve peeled many yams, peeled oranges, peeled love, peeled my skin, peeled tears, peeled my sins, peeled memories, peeled passion and watched them bleed.
Have you peeled fire?
It doesn’t bleed, feel, heal, scream or run.
Fire burns with fear.
I know this because I’ve seen fear burn, shifting blames on smokes; I’ve seen darkness fry shifting blames on smokes; I’ve seen fear shift blames from night to day, from love to hate, from life to death, from journeys to home, I’ve seen blames and fear every day.
People look beautiful when they’re burning.
If you’ve not seen a dragon spit fire, you’re lucky, go and see a chameleon changing its colours because of fear, go see fireflies blinking because of fear, go see the fate of a lizard that forgot home to jump inside water to become a crocodile.
Smokes are the tears of fear when burning,
Snows are the tears of fear when boiling.
In my village lizards nod because they cannot believe or understand why crocodiles will choose to jump into a river they cannot swim with happiness walking home.
Home should be carried everywhere.
Crocodiles cannot swim they walk watching schools of fish carry home through swimming.
If you cannot pump water you cannot swim. I know many scientists will not agree that this is a theory.
If you’ve not seen a dragon breathe fire you’re lucky, go see a chameleon stretch its tongue like a synagogue, like a thermometer for taking temperatures pretending its preying for insects.
You will take temperatures like thermometers when you’re burning,
You will take temperatures like tongues when you’re burning.
Lizards have once been safe at home, they’ve once carried home everywhere.
Lizards walked on land before but now they run with fear pondering, wondering why crocodiles will jump into what they cannot pump.
Happiness is the only road with hearts that carry home through their veins.
You will take temperatures like thermometers when you’re afraid.

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Poems © Paul Oluwafemi David
Image: Pixabay.com