Poetry: Saddest Night Alive by Romeo Oriogun

"They will write this as the saddest night alive.."

It always starts with your silence, your body running away,

even though you are here and the music is still playing

and all I want is to dance, just to dance baby

but you are really not here and the sea is always hungry

and everyone is watching how you will feed it.

We are in a movie, we are acting

but you keep saying this is not right,

I want to know who made love so wrong.

The director is screaming, his veins are bulging,

I’m shouting leave him alone, it was the words I shouted

when they lynched you in my dreams.

Can’t you see my buttons undone and waiting for your fingers?

Can’t you see the leaves are falling?

It’s the season for wearing new skin,

for pretending you don’t love the boy who rode across your mouth

last night and I understand you are afraid

because your friend’s father gave him up to the police

on his birthday and I know it’s a shitty way to celebrate a new year

but I do not want to beg for love,

I do not want to steal into your dreams.

The DJ is playing my favorite song,

bodies are moving like fireflies dancing by the riverside,

you are leaving, in my hand is a glass of gin and tonic,

I’m learning how to live with this fear of not finding love

in this city, how to watch my waves run back into the sea

like a dog cursed with the luck of finding dead lovers.

The director is shouting but you are already gone

and I’m leaving, drunk and in tears,

the music is still playing, still calling our hearts like clouds

waiting for the miracle of wings.

They will write this as the saddest night alive

but it won’t mean a thing to us, we’ve been hurting

before the earth put to birth.

Click here to read about the Poet.

Read: DEPARTURE by Romeo Oriogun here