Yellow Berries of the Moon
By Tunmise Adebowale
I always hear about the sun and the moon
and how they’re so different
yet they are still lovers.
I never hear about the
clouds and the sky
as the clouds and the sky
do not belong to each other.
See the sun and the moon
are 93 million miles away
yet their love is described with such bliss
whereas the clouds and the sky
share the same space
they’re never spoken about in confidence.
The thing about the sun and the moon,
is that every single day they show up
they’re always there.
Clouds only sometimes visit the sky
then carry on elsewhere.
Clouds can never compare to the moon
what the clouds bring is provisional.
Temporary company.
Grey skies.
Love conditional.
He reminds me of the clouds
with me for a while.
never there to stay.
Constant conversation through my phone
at midnight to complete strangers the next day.
Remind myself of the sky
I’m here and never leave.
He’ll come in like clouds,
fog up my mind with false love
never fully received.
The thing I learned from loving
the clouds is that love helps you grow
Never settle for that
which comes in like clouds.
Learn from the rain
on how to let it go.
If I don’t let it go
it’ll go longer.
For how much longer
will I be tethered to earth
by invisible thunderstorms
and act as though
the prison I sleep in
isn’t made from paper?
When will I
extend cupped hands
through my open window
to collect the gently falling rain
so that I can bloom
so that the veins in my arms
can align with
the roots of berry trees
and explode into a hail
of rosy, white petals?
He is the moon,
and I am the sun.
Never up together,
for he has spun
me into his lies.
I should’ve seen it coming.
Should’ve seen the cries.
But how could I and how can I
when my love for him is
a one-sided
Sickness?
I keep my sentences short.
you do not pursue
what you can’t comprehend.
I know,
taking a good,
a hard,
a look at me
will send him running
straight to the clouds.
it will finally occur to him
that I am a puzzle he cannot solve.
But, please.
I beg
never forgive
I am not sorry.
I’d quite like to be
your leaving didn’t cripple
it tranquilized
and numbed me.
Regardless though I have found
I was always sort of numb.
supposed to feel
I’ve been playing a role
for you, for everyone
and that my whole life has been
one underpaid performance
so I don’t ache over you.
Not because of my being numb
because it was never me
you grew to love.
It was a character.
However,
I don’t deny that a part
of my character loved you.
How our long, lost glances that
wither in the rain
how sweet were the lies
that fell from the obscurity of your lips.
I am floating debris
and you said I have the name of a survivor.
You placed my heart on your palm and
taught me how to live.
You said flowers don’t just die, they also bloom.
Silhouettes of my past lingers across your fingers
and you pull them apart.
After the pain you caused
you owe me a blue sunset.
I deserve a blue sunset.
The kind that takes all my grief and doesn’t really heal.
Not all species regrow their limbs,
some just learn to live with loss.
How do you look at the other and not see yourself?
How do you take me there with you, blue and bleeding?
I’ve been thinking a lot about running.
I’ve been thinking about running with you and not asking
for any more metaphors.
I think the moon pities my grief.
It can’t help me anymore,
or maybe it’s waiting for me to ask it.
Ask for me. Please.
Bitterness reaches through my mouth
and down my esophagus.
Do you know what grief tastes like?
On Tuesdays, it tastes like warm water.
