The Theory Of Origin

Three poems about Origin and Identity by Logan February

Dibia

There was a tree house
and there was divination —
the white-faced strangeling
told me
love gave birth
to the loneliness
inside me.

He held my hair & told me
to breathe.

I swallowed cowries and sleeping
pills for a month.
Stay awake, darling,
you have to save yourself.

He blew blue dust
and feathers in my face
until I was cursed with
fear.

I gathered slumber
and arcane dreams
from the
underground, screaming
my silent war-song.

There was a castle and
a tower and
a magic man and
a lemon tree.
We all crumbled into fact.

A man is only as
insane
as his insanities will
let him
be.

A Gagged Image

My real face is under the covers
on these moonlit nights. I invite you
into my bedroom & we pretend
to be current events. You have that
unshakable talent for picking
the wrong parts of my arms and
loving them. It is rare. I make you feel
an eruption in return. I have learned
to mirror & none of us is real. I could
cough up improper bones,
rearranged. I could be infidel instead of
good Christian boy. I could say you are
the wrong body. I play this part blessedly.
You bloom. I bloom.
I have learned to mirror you.
We think only of existing and neither of us
remembers to.

The Theory Of Origin

Dust is the only origin I know,
like an unearthed seedling —
never the son of a clean slate —
I am too many words and not
enough language constantly
pouring new names into my limbs,
so I think my first blank page was
this body my body uprooted.

Logan February is a happy-ish Nigerian owl who likes pizza & typewriters. His work has appeared in Vagabond City, Barking Sycamores, Emboss Magazine, and so on. His book, Yellow Soul (April Gloaming Publishing) & a currently untitled chapbook (Indolent Books) are forthcoming in 2017. You can follow him on Instagram & Twitter @loganfebruary.