The Romasinder Skits

by Dami Ajayi

I

03.00 am

 

Come away from me,

Lofty thoughts that bother

Sanity and doubt,

Come away from me,

Right away!

 

And when I’m beside myself

I eavesdrop on my inner man

And another man,

Their voices crest and fall

In strange tones,

I listen hard but I can’t

Comprehend.

 

Is it wrong to intellectualize this?

To seek miracles in quotidian

life.

 

Is it wrong to oblige this urge

To embrace the arms of

The boisterous Atlantic?

 

Is it wrong

To rouse oneself

With hashish kisses,

To ejaculate into vats of intellection?

 

 

II

 

Sixteen Hours Later

 

I have been clean six days,

Haven’t been human for five,

Fitzgerald’s pain

 

He says of those that drink,

How drinks drink themselves

Till you stink.

 

My shrink and I

Share cigarettes.

 

Science prescribes

Five minutes madness daily

As elixir for sanity,

Like Paul for Timothy,  a little wine

But my desire diminishes my rations.

And my burning insides

Is cold turkey, side salad.

Who is for dessert?

 

III

 

An Aside

 

Your Elliot-ness,

Therapy was when you

Slowly took off your clothes,

When your rheumy eyes

Took mine off.

 

We have fought off many things:

Prufrock’s ghost, Asthma, Liquor,

Love. The time has come to

Fight again.

Self.

 

 

IV

 

03.00am

 

Wee hours of the morning,

When night on guard has slept

My demons wake me for a walk.

 

We sneak into the Devil’s Playground

And mount the roller coaster and frolic

With danger

 

My shrink says these thoughts

Are not mine.

 

Freud is for dinner,

Cigarettes are for dessert.

 

__________________________

Dami Ajayi is a medical doctor. He has been published in Saraba, Mapletree Literary Supplement, Ann Arbor Review, Sentinel Magazine, African-Writing Online and elsewhere. His debut collection  of poems, Clinical Blues, is due out in November 2012.