perhappened mag
issue 3: HEATWAVE
i am running my hands
through the void
CHIDERA IHEKERELEOME-OKORIE
walking through the labyrinth of our memories/ in search of anything that has the shape of you/ i am trying to remember/ what it felt like when the one who loved me back/ still had the gift of breath/ i find us at the place we first met/ the gentle breeze nudging the flowers to wrap this memory with sweet scent/ you brush the hair from my face/ and your hand blurred like the windscreen of our car the night you passed/ when our skin meet/ some parts of you give way to the void/ first/ your hand/ now your brows/ i resist the urge to touch and be touched by you/ i blame it on the hotness of the weather/ in the evening/ you speak for the first time/ let us go to the house we had been saving to buy/ we sit beside the fireplace/ in order to see/ & we play a game/ where we write everything on our minds/ i read mine out loud/ to be here with you forever/ to love you even in the absence of touch/ you kiss me/ and beseech me not to resist/ i see you come apart/ just before the heat from the fireplace settles on my eyeglasses/ what is left of the man whose chest is deep enough to collect all of my drowning?/ i wake up to your post-it-note on my pillow/ to love a dead man is to touch him into oblivion.
Chidera Ihekereleome-Okorie is a budding poet who lives in Nigeria. She writes poetry because it helps her understand the world and the reason she is in it at this time. When she is not writing, she is singing, or trying new recipes. Find her on Twitter @chideraIheke.