Caleb Azumah Nelson

Love made you Black, as in, you were most coloured when in her presence.

The gaze requires no words at all; it is an honest meeting.

You came here to speak of shame and its relation to desire. There should be no shame in openly saying, I want this. There should be no shame in not knowing what one wants.

You create a small world for yourselves, and for you both only, sitting on this sofa, looking out at the world which has a tendency to engulf even the most alive.

It is the wrong season to have a crush. Meeting someone on a summer’s evening is like giving a dead flame new life.

Sweet conversation from sour lips, the salt on the rim of the glass perched on the tongue.

You ricochet through the dark underbelly of London.

Her spirit is everywhere.

e asked you to help him, to care for him, which wasn’t a problem, is never a problem, except you have been doing it for years, especially when your father’s love failed, when your father was far, in body or in spirit, and the responsibility fell to you, without much choice, and it was hard, difficult for a child to take care of himself and another, impossible to do without one or other being neglected, on other days, like today, you’re reminded the distance is long and hard. This is your brother, your charge, your duty, your son.

So she’s reaching into a pocket of time, where there’s nothing but heatwave blue, a summer in January, golden dust stuck between toes, the roar of a quiet body of water.