Boy - Loic Ekinga

After Olivia Gatwood’s “Girl, after Ada Limón”

I will not be shamed for falling apart

And sinking into my mattress.

For never allowing my nails to grow too long and

hook onto bedsheets.

Wear too much pink or seek out the softness

At the tip of words, of poems and song

And lose myself to sad music.

Mourn lost love longer than a man should

And tell strangers all about it.

I will not apologise for saying please and thank you and

I can’t anymore

Because all of it makes me boy.

Soft and dreaming

Sometimes lacking courage —boy.

Calling men gorgeous and beautiful and bright

A petal and a flaming chariot—boy.

My barber presses his erect penis against my shoulder

I do not flinch.

I make love to my lover, her soul and mine

Tangle and spread under the sun like a wallflower—boy

Still find pride in the act of love

Still find pride in watching her body arrive under mine.

No matter what, I will still be

Rolling on my grandmother’s green grass

‘Til my body turns to ants.

Eating ripe mangoes under the shade of a tree until my belly

Swells like the sun—boy.

Shake with anticipation at the thought of my body being

Touched and burden my poems with so much

Unnecessary beauty.

I am still boy, man, petal—strong. Soft.

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Loic Ekinga Kalonji (21st century) Democratic Republic of the Congo

Source: Brittle Paper