HOW YOU PICK YOUR COLOURS by Philip C. Abonyi

You know how to become a colourful flower to attract your bees,
A foam in the hand to bring the moon on your face,
A deep of finger in rainbow to pick colours for your lips;
Red is for the boys whose bodies taste like yours,
and are ready to bend in any of your corner.
Yellow for those trying to touch the sunlight.
Black for devils who read the scripture of roadsides.
Blue for boys whose bodies are dog wagging their tails at lust.
Violent for those who may steal your body
and try to escape like a mosquito you caught sucking your mother’s blood.
Green, purple are not your colours/ they do not know how things are run/how to catch a body and burn it into the ashes of your wish/
The first time you paint a portrait, it was of two shadows— one fading into the body of the other,
while the other groans like a wall that caught the shape of two lovers.
Your mother once caught you painting at sixteen
And there she named you lost,
And started reading the book of grief you bought her.

Philip Chijioke Abonyi is a budding writer who writes poetry, prose and articles. He is a  Science Laboratory Technology student, who hails from Enugu State, Nigeria. He was shortlisted in Eriata Oribhabor Poetry Prize, 2018. His works have been published in the Ace World, Eve magazine, qwenu, Allpoetry, Tushstories etc. His facebook handle is Philip C. Abonyi.