My therapist is stethoscopic.
She twigs at my bones for facts.
She wants to know about
the lover who left me, some
historic sojourner, going
the way most lovers go.
I am foreign, but she claims
to know the language of my
plump heart; she listens for it
like it’s the silence after a
sorrowing wind—
however I don’t say a word.
I burst empty of tears, letting
her chart my unnamed waters.
She thinks it’s about cartography.
& when I would not broach my
bones to reveal my fragile songs,
she writes down:
“patient is xenophobic towards treatment.”
Henry Strange, born Liberian, is a Nigerian artist currently studying political science at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He has pieces of literature published or forthcoming in Eboquills, Brittle Paper, Agbowó and elsewhere. You can find him on Twitter @hxnry_strxngx