Take: x = today, y = tomorrow, and k = time
Question I: What would you consider as constant
if all of these unknown variables wear
the memory of you?
Answer: Here’s the return of old habits. Of multiplying
nights & days to equal the number of times
I spent nursing the broken pieces of my past.
I teleport into childhood, and bathe in
its innocence. I unsee the clouds gathering in
my father’s eyes as they announce another
downpour of smithereens. In my mother’s,
I recollect shimmers of her withered dreams.
I, fleshy strangeness, wrapped in naivety,
unperturbed by the world’s chaos.
Question II: If x = now, find y?
Answer: I, an offspring of a broken hymn stuck in
the diastema of my ancestors. I, an x with all
of life’s present tense, & the moon’s salty tears running
in my veins. every arteriole quakes with the
uncertainties of y, which is too big to feed
a clairvoyant’s delight. y, an amalgam of tomorrow
and now.
Question III: Interpret the expression y = kx
Answer: Like plastics obeying fire, I submit myself
to be scrutinized by time. I let the wind predict
the path I follow. I allow the things I can’t control
to providence. But, at constant time, tomorrow
is dependent on today. In this equation, everything
outlives time except memories.
Joshua Effiong is a writer and digital artist from the Örö people of Nigeria. He is a a Pushcart Prize nominee, winner of Aster Lit’s Spring 2022 Award in Poetry, 2nd prize winner of Creators of Justice Awards 2021(poetry category), Finalist for 2021 River Heron Editors’ Prize and Semi-finalist for Jack Grapes Poetry Prize 2021. His poetry chapbook Autopsy of Things Left Unnamed was published in 2020. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Kalahari Review, Shallow Tales Review, Rough Cut Press, Madrigal Press, Titled House, The Indianapolis Review, Chestnut Review, Rising Phoenix Review, Acropolis Journal, FERAL, Augment Review, Ghost City Press, Hearth Magazine, 580 split, Wrongdoing Magazine, Vast Literary Press, Native Skin and elsewhere. Find him on Instagram @josh.effiong and twitter @JoshEffiong