body work

xxix: akan names

**tw's: death, sh, gore, depression, blood, insects**

ref: the akan people of ghana often name their children after the day of the week they were born—

(i). m (sun.)—kwasi:

you tried to find the same universe in me the second time we met, kinda said how it wasn't like me to hide out in my head.

you tried to talk me out of the bed, to walk me through my shame instead—all i

have is remembering the first time you touched me, dragging me away from the desk & then this time around, leaning

into me as i cried out in pain. i kinda hope i both do & don't ever see you again.

see, how could i explain the extent of my grief? it was easier to just walk past with the blood congealing on my arm—

those were the days i was avoiding how to be a human, i don't really remember

much of these times, this whole year was spent scratching at myself to erase the past—only to realise

how it doesn't go away. i think a part of us already knew that, a part of us was scared to already know that.

i want to know if you know about the dead girl, & that she thought you lived up to your name. i want to know the reason you only work nights—who is it you have to stay away for during the days—

i somewhat remember that talking became your medication, & how we laughed. i like to think that's how i'm remembered by you

& yours—it's time now for sleep. i'll see the dead girl soon—& oh, how we'll laugh.

(ii). fem. (mon.)—adjoa

elizabeth watches me rearrange my face every morning & tells me a
story about how even a flower loses its scent &

how rot is the beauty of death. the bees to the pollen is what the flies are to the corpse, love—a tribute. lest everyone forgets you, you'll still have been a part of the earth. you don't have a choice—now,

yesobah wraps a scarf around her hair & i dip my head in shame. i better let someone else take the reins & find the peace in quietly slipping away—time

to get homesick for a place i never knew, this is how i knead myself a new heart–

         ache, upon my father's laughter, upon the memory of my father's laughter. it fades a little more each time, see the flower losing its scent?,

& now i know love is not the miracle, but keeping it is—to talk about the flies eating away at the dead girl's face for what it is—

an offering to the starving children—even in death, you have a doing—how the only time a desire to be different means anything at all.

isn't it beautiful that maggots find a home nestled in the ribs from which the original sin was borne? elizabeth asks, her frown my smile—& all of life is just an undoing

of the damage you've watched you do (to) yourself—swat me away all you like, but

this is the extent of my grief,
this is the extent of my grief.