The first of every November is a door to a new age. Today, the door expels me on a river bank with the sun hanging above my head—a replica of the day I dragged my first breath. Soon, a speedboat runs across the water surface & distort its calm—a portrait of the chaos blooming inside me. Every ripple dances to the depth of my soul. I reached into my chest and pull out a chunk of darkness: nights when my voice deserted me; nights when I offered my body to be sanctified by the music of the wind. It's my twenty-fourth year on this planet & I'm still uncovering new layers of myself. I begin to sing a birthday song & the river rushes into my mouth to cease my tongue, trading every molecule of oxygen in my lungs for sand and seashells. Every new year teaches me how to bend without breaking; how to love myself fervently; how to walk with my dreams into daylight without becoming vapor. Here, the sun enters the mouth of the river leaving a streak of orange in the sky—a template for new beginnings. Then, I collect my name into a wine glass & pour it into the river. Watching every consonant it possesses begins to sink while the vowels stay afloat. This is how I become a melody.
Joshua Effiong, Frontier VI, is a writer and digital artist from the Örö people of Nigeria. Author of a poetry chapbook Autopsy of Things Left Unnamed (2020). His works has been published or forthcoming in 580 split, Wrongdoing Magazine, Vast Literary Press, Native Skin and elsewhere. Find him on X @JoshEffiong and Instagram @josh.effiong.