Maryam Aliko Mohammed
1 – I WANT A MAN
Yes, I want a man
I want a man that is like me: shattered
broken into many pieces
but has taken time to glue the pieces back together.
A man who knows how sweet life can be
with a clarity that reveals itself at the point you shatter.
A man that, even though he could not find some of the smaller pieces
those slivers that got stuck somewhere
the pieces so broken that they can’t be fixed back
A man that has learnt to lean far back so that those cracks do not allow his essence to seep out.
I want a man
Like a scratch on a vinyl record
the pin gets stuck
and does not allow him to move on from that one line in his song
I want to be the hand that moves him to the next grove
Allow him to sing the rest of his song.
I too have been shattered
I glued my pieces together
From the dim light you cannot see how much I have mended
Only he will have the tender hands to lift up my pin
when I am stuck on the same verse.
2 – CONJURE
Did I conjure you up?
I must have.
It may have been in my lucid dream
It may have been one of those times when I found myself at Yemoja’s altar
I had been to many priestesses, goddesses and ancients.
Looking for you.
I paid with an occult coin.
Who would have thought that the beggar I was to give a coin to would give me one of his, and tell me it would buy that thing I wanted the most.
Who would have guessed that in that dream I would place it in her open palms when she demanded it without asking.
Who would have foreseen that the coin would grow incandescent in her palm, then rise, then move towards me and enter my heart.
I woke up from that dream with my heart racing to feel you along the length of me
cuddled in your arms
my head on your chest
I turn slightly to kiss your heart
I feel a strange warmth on my lips and a brightness behind my lids.
I open my eyes
the incandescent occult coin is your heart.
Maryam Aliko Mohammed is insanely curious and has opinions to share, her writing is insomnia induced when the voices in her head reward her with moments of profound insight she hardly remembers in the morning. She holds that life comes down to who you love and who loves you back, and her conviction that she is at the centre of defining these.
