Elizabeth Oyibo

Elizabeth Oyibo May 2018

what now

silent silhouettes spoke to me under the silver moon, and
in those moments of remorse, your
bones bled the promises you broke, and
your silence screamed every word you never spoke, the
agony your heart holds crept its way out of its cage, and
in this moment of my weakness, it
maneuvered its way among the rubble and the debris, every
shattered, bent, and broken piece of me, it
somehow found its way into my heart, and
it has chosen to remain, ever since you chose to depart.

Elizabeth Oyibo May 2018

burn

you did not pour your love onto me, you
poured gasoline, and
the spark, the
beginning of something I thought would light up my life, lit
me on fire.
I am nothing but ashes now.

May 2018

Skaidrum

bones of honey

<>
'cause this is how he loves me

i.
when
emptiness hangs like a moon in my mouth-
he kisses the stain of night
from my palms;
and turns it
into
a
pulse.

ii.
he reminds me that our love-
is the constant tag of
"drowning sun and flowering moon"
between opposite horizons;
and that the sky will always be
our stage.

iii.
his heartbeat is the closest thing
to what the universe sounds like;
and he blinks and says instead:
"my love, my one and only,
you always will be
my beautiful infinity"

iv.
when i am nothing but
the color of mirrors-
or a broken chaser
of the light-
he finds a way to worship
even the coldest silhouettes of myself
like one would of art.

v.
i am a mural of a target-
i am constantly flirting with death-
yet he has been feasted on by bullets
because he refuses to let
shadows make a meal
of my soul.

vi.
he has defied every walking god
in his path to prove that nothing,
and i mean no existing thing-
can place a dent in our love.

vii.
the thing about the sun is that
he loves nothing more
than when i paint his bedroom ceiling
with our future.

viii.
And when death stands
on the tip of my tongue-
and the nightmares cup my cheek
in the flesh of my own kingdom (the night)
...
he holds me close;
until all the wars within my bones
turn to honey.

<>
paradise grows in our footprints my love
© Copywrite Skaidrum

#love

Elizabeth Oyibo May 2018

still

every night, we
drew blood from the moon, and
allowed it's silver pools, to
fill the cups in which we drank from in order to immerse ourselves in our own delusions, we

hid underneath a blanket of stars, tending
to the loneliest parts of ourselves, I
would pick the flowers from my garden, and
I would plant them in yours, I

would knock upon doors in your mind, hoping
something inside you would find the strength to open up, but
most of the time they remained shut, and

I have always wandered through forests and oceans, searching
for pieces of myself, yet
within you I found a few, and
I also found something else, within

you I found both heaven and hell, I
found both graveyards and gardens, I
discovered the sun and the moon, and
I discovered it within me too, yet

it seems that often times I misconstrued what you said you saw in me, I
knew that I have always been a tragedy, an
abandoned garden, decaying
and destined to never flourish again, yet

I thought you had found a spot in my ground in which you could plant yourself, in
which you could grow and despite the parts of my garden that are withering away, you
had found a reason to stay, but

I was wrong because the only door you ever opened was one that did not reside in either of our minds, but
a door that was in my life, and
you walked out.

Elizabeth Oyibo May 2018

sky

cotton candy clouds of calm swirl into my skies, sometimes
the dark parts of me can be subdued momentarily, and
when they are, it is beautiful, it
is something that paralyzes people with its beauty, and
something that touches the heart of the unholy, it's only
ever something that occurs rarely, yet when it does I
cling to it, like a child to its mother, because
who knows when i will see another sky, a sky
that is not filled with darkness and lacking so much light, a sky
that does not disregard the day and settles in the night, a sky
that although holds the Venus lining, is still smiling
at the world, unapologetic in its beauty, you see
my happiness, my light, my flourishing garden, is like the sunset, it
is so short, so sweet, so beautiful, but can never escape the inevitability of darkness, it
will always fade into the night, gone, lost, without a sight.

Elizabeth Oyibo May 2018

XII

over time, my garden has become desolate, and
i told you that i feared for its demise, i
told you that at night i would cry, as
the petals from my flowers would fall, one by one, and
you knew, you
knew of the darkness that was consuming me, and
i thought you were the light, i
thought you were tending to my garden of loneliness, words
acting like sunshine and rain, but
you weren't, when
i thought you were digging holes to plant seeds of love, adoration,
and happiness, you
were digging graves to bury the broken parts of yourself, you
turned my garden into a graveyard and i still don't know why.

Elizabeth Oyibo May 2018

XI

I've always known that the glass was half empty, and
not half full, you
have only ever wanted to leave me empty, abandoned
and all alone.