Abigail Oghene
BASED IN UK
Abigail is a Nigerian storyteller. Exploring themes of love, race, migration and the infinite consciousness that lies beyond it all, Abigail uses music, prose, poetry, teaching and spiritual practice to channel narratives passed down from ancestors that came before her, and fashion fresh tales to tell the descendants that will surely follow us into the coming age of Aquarius... where black women rule the world.
Salt
Let me stand for a moment in a dark room
With the curtains sealed so tightly that the light can’t really get in
Let me sit in this new place
With my fro up and my feet down
And my eyes fixed upon the borrowed black
Just so that I can think.
Turn that song on
You know –
The one you played to me that time
When my hair was all wet from the thunder and the rain
And then suddenly it didn’t feel like I was cold anymore.
Forgive me now
For my ignorance and for my fury,
And please, oh girl, just listen –
Do you remember the music?
When it opened up that little box inside of you
And then you filled it up with my pieces.
The sound crackled out of those ancient speakers,
Distorted till it was unique for our ears alone
I felt it like I feel these clothes against my skin
Like someone had finally opened the door
And I was outside for the first time
And the fresh air tasted like a fever to me.
Oh won’t you forgive me, now,
For all the ignorance and the fury,
And please, oh girl, just listen –
I’ll never forget all those things you taught me about lightness, you know
And the way that sometimes it can be heavier than the dark.
And it was only the taste of the salt I could remember
From when I kissed you for the first time.
But you? You were nothing like the ocean –
Too much of you exposed.
That’s how I knew that you couldn’t hide anything from me,
Like when that song came on by accident at four in the morning
When we were supposed to be asleep.
So tell me I am forgiven,
For the ignorance and for the fury,
And I beg you, oh girl, just listen –
I could smell you from the kitchen when you walked into the house
With your eyes all sunken in and your brain on fire.
You told me that you’d finished what you’d started
So now you had no choice but to say goodbye.
‘Honey, I’ve put the very last piece of me into this box,
And you can open it up again whenever you like.’
I accept your pain and I accept your rationality
So I won't make a fuss about it when you walk away from me.
But kiss my cheeks, girl, and kiss my eyes,
And then forget me like you’d never seen my face.
Forget me now
And my ignorance and my fury.
But to the music, my love,
Keep on listening.