time/ is inhaling us both.—Anthony Anaxagorou.

I miss the quiet of the night, the joy of having all 

that expanse ours, the fine curtains of God’s sprawling sky 

all jeweled with stars. how mad we were, mad &

beautiful, like little children trying to explain how 

the universe works, stupid but cute all the same. 

I think of you, & your face, all bright with that smile,

is what fores. I miss the days before we knew the universe

as a fist: all the cigarettes we burned behind the hostel,

all the rivers whose depths we tested? remember how I danced

like an idiot in a Yoruba comedy movie, the first time I did weed,

my body alight with colors, a birdy boxset filled with joy.

all the rain-wet nights we spent walking the dirty streets

of Abeokuta, days the world felt so cold we had to invent

our own warmth. had we known this long road was waiting us?

remember how we talked about the future, about what Time can do

& undo—between em-dashes in convos about the girls, the girls, 

the girls—in our bodies? man, I wanted to write you a love poem, 

one to tell you how hungry I am for us to return, to be 

back in our untouched bodies, to sit, just the two of us,

under all of that expanse, laughing, laughing, & laughing

at this world, a jargon of Math questions written by the crazy

fingers of God—but here, what have I said, but that Time is

all that we fear, the bitch that wrests everything from our hands

& wouldn’t give it back

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