ascension town headstones. a crow sets out for the cemetery at ascension town. it settles on a night-spattered headstone. it lifts its wing. it picks at its feathers.
remembered with love, says the headstone beneath the bird, regina dongboi. 2 september 1997 – 6 december 2019. daughter, sister, friend,
listener, great hugger, happy, strong, selfless, complicated, human, my best friend.
(haiku) came with a light i had never seen myself in peace to my shadows.
curney barnes lavenders.
a mother births a child. flowers grow from his skull at night, out the edges of his eyes, out his ears. this all happens at curney barnes hospital, mid december. she hurries and calls the doctor, pa jones, who comes in his blue rubberized coat and holds shears, because she doesn’t understand, and because she’s afraid of what the mouth of the world will say about her child.
my child’s strange, cut his flowers down, the mother screams. i want no strange child.
but they will, you know, only grow back, replies pa jones, gardener and physician, as he prunes lavender, spilling blood.
then, you come cut again and again, doc. jesus, i’ll buy my own blade, jesus christ.
lumley angels.
calabash with too many things inside. so full—strangers on top of strangers, cars on top of cars, poda-poda, taxis, okada on top of okada, keke—when not careful of our strides, we fall out and into the gloaming of space.
smothered in this lumley congestion, trekking homeward, afraid of falling out and into the gloaming of space, i met a beggar-man one day. ragged, ashy, face more hair than skin, back on a multicoloured boutique wall, he said he’s an angel of allah and no one is ever truly alone in this world. and in lieu of coins, he begged me for fire, bringing out a haloed gold seal cigarette. don’t ever forget that, he added.
aberdeen bridge volcanoes.
the boy with flowers in his skull, when his universes roared against each other at aberdeen bridge, said to no one: i just want them to be happy, but they only fight all the time. he was four, then. no four-year-old’s ears must be burdened to let in volcano-fire. and, all these years, it never stopped, the magma and lava from his parents’ mouths. what becomes, then, of the landscape of the mind?
leicester peak constellations.
at leicester peak, she offers me the rolled-up paper, as though i’m a small god and weed is oblation.
nope, i say.
she nods. she tiptoes. she plucks out a star from a constellation behind me. she cups it in a way only her hand knows, like fragile, arcane surahs. celestial fire to relight her blunt. deep draw, hold, exhale; silver clouds form before us, then, make their way to the heavens.
cotton-wool vocal, she says; where do you prefer? here or lighthouse?
to watch the sun set? depends.
depends?
on how you feel. or how you want to feel.
go on, she says, shifting her weight on the aged, wooden bench beneath us.
here, you get to see the sunset and a good portion of freetown, be reminded of the lives you’re connected to, of your role, and the importance of yourself.
hmm. and lighthouse?
the unimportance, the insignificance, of yourself. you get to see the sunset, and the ocean upfront, be reminded of how brief we are in this vast, timeless world.
we’re silent for a long time.
i speak, again; someone told mom i’m depressed. we had a fight this morning. said why should i be? i’ve got a job. roof over my head. i eat. i’m loved. i should be grateful. look at all the people who’ve died.
are you?
i am…and i don’t know why. i—only when my tears rope themselves to stones and leap into the abyss below, do i realise i’m crying again—i feel alone. that’s why i asked we come.
she holds me. she hugs me. she echoes the lumley angel, when she says, i’m here for you.
…but who was there for her?
limount college memories.
a giant rat stands at lodge, five foot nine, next to chicken town, next to limount college, our old school, playing the harmonica to tired-eyed passers-by headed home tuesday evening. she looks at me, blows haunted breaths into her instrument birthing haunted melodies of infinite pain. i look at her, i exhale, i understand. the taxi jolts forward through rain. the music, like the memory of a long-gone friend, fades away.
listening to new songs,
laughing at teachers,
your acceptance of me,
studying for exams,
eating together,
running. how are
memories made?
gooding drive secrets.
father wakes at three a.m, gooding drive. he’s soiled his room again, the very reason he demanded he and his wife sleep in separate spaces on this earth. maybe, she suspects him, but he can’t let her know his secret; he has forests in his skull, and some nights, they spill out, engulf the world. ferns and moss crawl up golden walls. vines hang from ceiling, bulbs. oil palms rupture leaf-covered tiles and stretch to touch bedroom-sky.
gooding drive wars.
home becomes a battlefield, which is to say all hearts within its walls grow guns and swords and nuclear bombs. love turns into war. father fights mother, mother fights child, child fights father. a chain of rage. a tasbih of anger. a rosary without god.
lighthouse ramble.
the entire day today i’ve realised i think i got them from my dad, the flowers in my head. not even think. i know. majority of our problems, our arguments, are based on that. i definitely got them from him. and it’s the fact that he gets blamed a lot. you don’t even understand. i feel so bad for him. because the number of times we go through arguments, not even arguments, serious fights. and i know how hard it is. i’m not even an adult with all that responsibility, all of those things to manage with a different brain, or whatever. but i know how hard it is, how much i struggled in university, struggled with my o-levels, a-levels, i know how hard day to day life can be. so it’s just the fact that he’s gone for so long without a doctor, or a gardener. mom was explaining to me. she’s been angry for a few days now, she takes it out, it’s been coming out in certain areas. today i got mad, because they were doing this back and forth. and i told her i wasn’t their intermediary; if you want to talk to him, go and talk to him, you married him. then she sat me down, and she’s explaining things—then it clicked, clicked, dawned on me that dad, too, must have flower gardens in his skull. gardens turned unkempt forests. my poor mother, having to deal with us both. and it’s just that i’m doing some more research on how to be better. and you know how much i want to do better in life. you know. and i need all the support i can get. sorry, i’m crying. i need as much help and support i can get, and i don’t think i’m going to be able to do it if they’re always fighting. and i think i need to tell mom about dad. he’ll get the treatment he needs. i’m going to talk to her tomorrow. it’s kinda like this feeling of impending doom, all the time. i’m tired. i’m tired, but hopeful, and that’s what’s crushing me. because i know what i want to do, i know how much i can do. but i need so much support. i actually want to achieve what i can achieve in this life. i just wanted to say that. what do you think, regina?
(haiku) her and i, calmly by the lighthouse, sunset, sea the pain quietens.
lumley beach jellyfish.
the last day they met, they became sea creatures, and then became the sea itself, at lumley beach. they’d walked all afternoon long, because he was afraid of standing still, because he was afraid the sandpaper world would trudge on his back. she wanted to stop, to rest, breathless, but for his sake, she went on. he held her hand, and she led him into the salted, white atlantic. there, they became seahorses. there, they became jellyfish, silver and alone in the sun-lit water, among the bubbles. then, they became the sea, which is to say they left their troubles and tirednesses on shore, and for one phosphorescent second, the two were as happy as only waves could be. and, perhaps, that we can be so close to a person and not know of the stories and agonies in their veins, is the greatest flaw in our human design.
(haiku) a dream last night: an- gels contemplated suicide check on your strong friends.
leicester peak hearts.
do you never get tired of me pestering you? he asked her at leicester peak. always buzzing around your space like a fly?
she replied, in her sing-song voice; maybe, that’s love? you don’t slap the fly, you let her buzz, all night, you fall asleep to her music, and she kinda makes you feel happy, kinda makes you smile, and if she goes away, your stomach kinda churns, or whatever. perhaps you pester me, but so what? i’m not all honey, too, i mean. anyway, flies are indeed terrible things, and i still want you here.
poets…couldn’t have just said yes, or no, or maybe…i’d never swap you for anyone else. even in a world where i knew how to make friends.
fritɔŋ surreal.
yesterday, at murray town junction, cars flying home beside shy, grey-feathered doves, i bought bread off a jovial man. as he glazed the tapalapa with sweet-milk gold, i thought of you. today, walking down soft kingharman road, brookfields, to meet with mom and dad, from a woman with cobweb hair, i bought plantain chips. she smiled, handing the packets to me. seeing the sequin sparkles swimming in my eyes, did she know, then, my thoughts were again of you? and tomorrow, tomorrow, i’ll be at babadori junction, 9:15pm, and better, and buying kankankan beneath the pale moonlight. ‘bra, ad fɔ mi fat,’ i’ll say, as you’d liked it. ‘ɛn pak di kankankan…’ all i’m trying to do is taste the things i once tasted here with you.
i miss you, regina dongboi.
(haiku) quick, they pass us by birds across freetonian sky all the good ones go.
lighthouse goodbye.
you did all you could for me. yet i never saw your burning—that deadly sin: to not see the burning of those who keep us warm. i was searching for a shirt to wear to your funeral. blue? pink? definitely not black. but i couldn’t anymore. now here i am, at lighthouse, talking to the sea, talking to my memories of you. of us. i always believed i’d die before you. sad people die early, you said your mother said. i was/am the sad one. the flower-headed boy. the one with fighting parents, lying father, a mom who cares too much about the words of the world. but here we are. you were not weak. i’m not strong. if anything, it was always you who gave me the push to endure. i wish i could’ve done the same for you. and you’re so rubbish, you, and your habit of never saying goodbye. i don’t know if this piece i’ve been trying to write shows the world how much you meant to me—by showing the spaces you filled in my story, the things i said, the hugs you gave, the listening you did…i wish i’d listened to you better. or is this piece just an imitation of our friendship, an honest reflection of how i failed you? of my selfishness? what do you think, regina dongboi?
About the Author:
Victor Forna is a Sierra Leonean writer based in his country’s capital Freetown. His short fiction and poetry have been published or are forthcoming in homes such as Fantasy Magazine, PodCastle, Lightspeed Magazine, Strange Horizons, Lolwe, and elsewhere. He is an alumnus of the 2022 AKO Caine Prize Writing Workshop. You can find him on twitter, @vforna12.
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