Eden 2047 – Anthony Ikeh

your name remains bulleted in the journal you gifted me on my birthday. there are extra bullets in all the places you marked ghosts, for haunting. think, Obiajulu. see the terracotta streets through which we walk into infinity and never stop. where the atom, first split once, looked God down and sneered. see the whispered promises parrotted into a sheaf of dawn. see palm trees swaying like murderous titans. i still rub my palms over exit wounds, bodied by your teeth on my body. color me selfish or mad, but I knew you were saving me even though you were dead yourself. to be honest, i liked you a little pale, within heaven’s door, and something short of a nebulous star.

all your shrieking thunder held me upright for the inevitability of loss. of vacancy. of nakedness of grief. all the things you knew how to do except walking out of the bathroom in my nightmarish house. dream where we exit God’s garden in flamboyant fashion: heads held high and drunken and in love with our antler-alligator-bear-flowerbed bodies. i remain in awe of how he adorned you in his image. God. this God. you, god, you forsaken ribcage left cracked up and bare—where forget-me-nots sprout wildly. think, who wrestles angels, knowing the body’s weakness is getting besieged by mercy. who can tell us what to do with our bodies? let us be like Okigbo, unbothered, if our antler-angel bodies are made of wax. come, let us dance in the sun. let us reinvent mankind in our own image. we are beautiful. now and before sunrise.

Contributor’s Bio

Anthony Ikeh is a Nigerian writer & self-acclaimed cinephile. His work are on or forthcoming on Brittle Paper, Kalahari Review, The Shallow Tales Review, Yugen Quest Review, Metaworker Literary, Eunoia Review, The B’k Magazine, African Writer Magazine, The Mixtape Review & elsewhere. He tweets @lanalovesbooks0