I'm too impatient for poetry

This is the last scene we see projected onto the whiteboard: rope coiled around a neck. Femi's neck. He wears a cropped top, pink corduroy skirt, black pop socks tucked into white Mary Janes. Femi has just taken his life, and an altar stands behind as witness. His friends, parents, abuser will find him like this.

You call the film poetic. You say you never guessed, not once in those twenty-five minutes, that Femi was secretly gay. I called it about 6 minutes into the film. I know the patterns. I know when a TV character is secretly homosexual. The film is bold, startingly so for a final year project in a Nigerian university. I wonder aloud how the lecturers reacted. I wonder how many people in the room saw themselves in this story. Not necessarily homosexual but caged like Femi was.

The film is like poetry, you say once more. That it shows, guiding the audience through rather than telling. It's subtle, leaving trails for you to follow. I agree. I don't say it aloud but I wish I were as bold as the director of the film. I wish I could tell stories despite. Stand my ground. Be truly different.

I flick my phone on. 9:00pm. My study plans are officially ditched. I should head back to my hostel, but it’s been a month since we last wandered campus, so I ignore the warning bells in my head and let us drift—aimless, the best way to walk.

This side of campus is buzzing. There's an art event somewhere so music bleeds into the night.

Fuji, you say. It's not Fuji. My body knows Fuji — hips twitch, shoulders catch the rhythm — so I'm certain.

This one's too slow. Sluggish even.

You say something about Seyi Vibez and I chime in about Asake. I can't remember the conversation but somehow you end up talking poetry. How it's the essence of life. How breathtakingly beautiful it is to write from the heart or soul or wherever.

I'm jealous that you feel so strongly about something. I don't think I've ever felt that strongly about anything.

Honestly, poetry intimidates me. The rhymes, metaphors, imagery. It's daunting to appreciate what seems so abstract. When I read fiction, it's easier to follow the plot or a character. But poetry seems... out of touch. Like foreign words on paper.

Still, I wrote a poem a few days ago. Or I wrote some lines that I thought were poem-worthy, and realized that there was a theme, pointing to something gnawing at my subconscious. An emotion. Peculiar. Particular. I decided I'd write my way out of that feeling. To capture the emotion on paper as proof that it exists because it felt so... mine. I write it down to inspect, dissect, understand. Like placing my heart on a plate and poking it just to see how it reacts.

It's hard. Writing is hard. God!

You say you've read it so many times that you can recite it. That warms me.

You then ask to understand this particular feeling. I'm trying to describe it. I'm trying but it's hard. It's like I'm losing myself in something that I'm not aware of. Like I'm caged and free at the same time. Sucked into the Bermuda Triangle. That I'm dragged down from shame and guilt, and I don't even know the origin of this shame. That I'm constantly looking over my shoulder, waiting for the shoe to drop. What shoe? I don't know! It feels like I'm doing something wrong. Like I'm transgressing. I say it's religious guilt, but guilt from what exactly? I need to step out of my body. Somehow, I'm reminded of that scene in The Substance where protagonist is reborn for the first time. She steps out of her old shell and emerges younger. I want to step out of my shell.

You're still talking about poetry.

We finally sit, and I confess that I don't get poems. You read Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins. You're the hundredth person to read that poem to me in an attempt to help me understand poetry.

I get it. I get that you're not supposed to find 'meaning', and you're simply supposed to enjoy it. Bask in it. The rhythms, metaphors, imageries. But I just don't get it.

You pull out a chapbook out of your bag (might as well be out of thin air) and read a poem to me. And another and another. Finally you ask me to read Ode To The Drum by Yusef Komunyakaa.

I read it like I would read a Tweet — rushed, impatient. See I don't get it, I didn't feel anything. You say the first time you read it, you didn't feel either.

You ask me to read the poem again, this time slowly. Savour each word. So I read it again. And again.

Wait. I kind of get this poem.

We read it together, even slower.

So that's it. I'm too impatient for poetry. I need to read each word like I'm chewing on them. I need to read words over and over. God, how much I hate doing stuff over and over.

We talk about Ode To The Drum and what we think it means. I think the protagonist is evil for killing a gazelle and creating a drum out of its skin.

Things take time. They need to marinate. Experiences should be enjoyed slowly.

Slowly. Take it slow. Live it. Live in it.

I say that I need to start reading my Bible like that. Reading again and again until worlds are revealed to me.

Maybe I should give this poetry thing a chance.

Our conversation bounces back and forth: we hate fiction that tries to teach a moral lesson, we think the first season of Arcane is better than the second, we love essays and reading about ideas, I think essays are pointless if they're not saying anything new, I'm toying with the idea of writing an essay, you are going through a lot with school and work, I have problem with the way this corn woman roasts her corn, you don't see what's wrong but you play along.

I remind you that I'm leaving school in a few weeks. You stop in your tracks.

So soon?

Yes, too soon.

You still have two more years to wander about campus. My time is slowly coming to an end.

In that moment I'm beating myself up for not meeting you earlier. Where were you when I struggled with loneliness in second year? Why did I meet you few weeks into my final year? What cruel joke is this?

We're both tired. It's almost 11pm.

When you pull me into that goodbye hug, I don't want to let go.