Red Light by Christtie Jay

[Why do you cut?]

If you show a blind man the stars
he will call you mad.

words can not convey my pain
bring your cups, sit, have a taste.

[You are still single?]

The years are unkind
last week you held your sisters baby in your hands

& called yourself a mother.
when the baby lets out a loud scream

she asks if you know how to take care of a cub
forgetting who cleared the road to her cot.

For your twenty seven birthday
you buy a peacock

& lay the feather train on your doormat
with undelivered love letters shaped like arrows.

the next day you open your door to dozens of birds
but they leave before nightfall

sometimes love is a bouquet of roses.
beautiful but dead.

Christtie jay is a Nigerian lawyer, freelance writer, poet and a spoken word artist who lives in Abuja, Nigeria. Christtie’s writings focuses on pain, love, violence and abuse. As she likes to put it “ I like to write about things people pretend not to exist”. You can find her on Instagram @christtie_jay.