We wake in cultivated silence,
blue morality conditioned by liquors.
We know Grief is the mother
of hangovers—an interloper of glee.
My head throbs, a stampede of demons
pounding inside; aching with the labor of existing.
We use painkillers even though
they won’t still the pain of living.
Often, I plod into my deplorable past:
How I lived a closeted life in terror of being
a casualty of familial condescension.
Having pardoned my miseducation,
you curtail my excesses to be with me,
replace my grief with gay,
my caprice with equanimity,
hence compelling my joy into existence.
What insistence glory you harbour,
lover? That theatrics through
which you propel me into quotidian excellence.
Kei Vough Korede (he/they) is a bi/queer Nigerian poet. He has works published with Woodward review, among others. Reach him on Twitter @KayVough
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