Temidayo Jacob

Temidayo Jacob
is passionate about espousing the conflict between the individual and society. He is the Creative Director of foenix press. He is also the author of Beauty Of Ashes. Temidayo’s work has appeared and is forthcoming on Rattle, Outcast Magazine, Lucent Dreaming, The Temz Review, Peeking Cat Poetry, Kissing Dynamite Poetry, Perhappened Magazine, and others. You can reach him on Twitter @BoyUntouched.

 

the therapist

 
my life, i have fought depression
[like an orphan in search of where to sleep]

i have rolled my healing in a puff & sang hymns
                       as i watch the smoke rise to heaven

— there are some hymns you sing at war because
the war carries more fractures than your pa’s name —

i was lost, then my ma found me
[like a born again meeting his messiah one last time]

my depression is a death on the day of resurrection

— the only way i know how to find my salvation is to shed my semen
in the closet like the saviour shed his blood on the cross —

my ma comes to visit me in the body of a therapist
my ma — a firehouse — who nurtured me in a nest of warmth

who gave me the impression that my wound is
a roadmap to someone else’s redemption

she carries a mark on her left breast
as if to show me where love hurts her most

my ma talks my depression into departure
— she shows it the door, and let out a voice,

“let there be light”

 

the smoke never stops

last week, our neighbour lost her husband
        [& her children lost their father]
& the whole house wore the colour of the night

i wonder why people say black is beautiful
even when they know it is the flag of grief
— i mean, my father once wore darkness
as robe & still couldn’t conquer his tears

the neighbourhood told our neighbour
to take heart    [as if she was taking her soul]
they christened our neighbour again
they called her a widow, & she cried a lagoon

she carried her husband’s name on her body
                            [like a cologne]
& set her body on fire — she watched herself burn

the only thing the voice of the mother of three could do
was scream eli eli lama sabachthani

like her tears, the smoke never stopped
she wanted to make it stop, but she didn’t know how