Bolu Babalola

Ọṣun knew that, when they were together, Ṣàngó drowned in her, died and came back to life in her, and that when their hips rolled together, it was stormy waves; almighty, thrilling, terrifying. She knew she tasted like honey and liquor and that she left him both satiated and insatiable, tipsy, and all at her whim.

Ọṣun was used to being looked at, but, from this moment, she would become used to being seen.

he kissed me; because it was in public, it was quick, but quick did not mean passionless. He kissed me and I felt like I’d drunk a whole row of the supermarket’s finest wines. My knees were weak. He kissed me and my second favourite pair of jeans automatically fit me better, curved around me better when his hand filled the back pocket. He kissed me, slipped a little tongue into my mouth, just a little promise, enough flavour to make me ravenous,

I forgot that he knew me. I was so used to being with men who didn’t.

If you want to call it quits, then do it, but I won’t let you make me do it. If you want to walk out right now, do it, but you’re not going to make me push you out.

I hope every time you try to un-fall in love with me you fail.

I’d told him everything about myself; not on purpose, it just happened. It was a natural reaction to the ease I felt around him and it was irresistible, being that free. It felt so good that I didn’t trust it and I treated it like a vice, when actually, maybe it was good for me? Maybe it was a good thing I deserved to have? It just felt too good, too fairytale, too storybook, too too, because I wasn’t used to it.

Some nights we would talk with words, others just with our bodies, developing our language, discovering new ways to say I love you; I see you, I hear you, me and you.

I felt like there was an infinity within our affinity, that our connection was so deep and so fathomless that there was no way we could be bound by something as mundane as dawn. We were our own suns.

I’d never felt more alive than when you made me breathless;