V-Day

V-Day poem, written by Chris & Miia on Val’s Day, 2007, at the Alliance Francaise in Accra, Ghana, while listening to a live reggae band

When a stone is a cap
And your guide is a cop
You know you’re where
What’s down is up

Where the birds are bats
And the sidewalk’s a gutter
The editor’s a lawyer
And the stenographer stutters

It’s a bizzaro world
Of minority whites
Desperate for acceptance
Yet so damn uptight

We’re young but we’re old
For bad or for good
Sometimes it means wisdom
Or we don’t try all we could

Sometimes we’re lazy
Sometimes just tired
Sometimes restless
Confused and miss-wired

Sometimes we’re soaking in the world
With nothing to prove in it
Sometimes letting it happen
Sometimes we groove on it

Home haunts us
Calls us to her
But the road too is calling
With an undeniable lure

Neither here nor there
Nor in between even
Every arrival
A prelude to leavin’

So it might make you sick
To hear then this tale
What’s anchoring this ship
In fine winds and gale

It’s the look in his eye
When I share a bit of wit
The strength of his heart
And what he does with it

People come and go
If we’re lucky we make friends
The reggae and beer flow
You take me home when the party ends

You keep me laughin’
In the face of insanity
You keep me true
When I’m surrounded by vanity

People are strange
And that’s a fact
So much the same
But still never exact

Copies of one another
Some “cool” and others shy
Some full of loving
And the rest bone dry

What is it in me
That’ll put up walls
Instead of enjoying
The blokes and the dolls?

All my self-doubts
Come back in my face
But your face is pretty
Self-doubts have their place

In all this madness
What difference can one make?
Unless she is willing
To be first on the stake

To sing a new song
With a catchy tune to it
Like we’re queer and here
Get used to it

It’s hard to imagine
I’m a decade older
Than some of the kids here
More round in the shoulder

Maybe I should be home
With just months till I’m due
A stable old corner
A life more subdued

No way! Says my heart
I’ll never give in
Corrode the conformity
Fight the power to win!

Then again
Home is sweet
Kids are fun
As they discover their feet

It won’t be long
What’s our rush?
Tell my soul to be quiet
And my mind to hush

This is this day
There’ll be no other
Quite like this day
So we shouldn’t bother

With the countless alternatives
Or what might have been
Anyway, baby
This is the scene

These are the players
This is our life
It’s goddamn exquisite
To have such a wife

As John Filson said
What could be better
Than to marry your best friend
Travel the world together

How ‘bout this
As my V-day pledge
To ride the wave
Worry less ‘bout the edge

So my dear
Will you take the chance
And join me for
A sweet reggae dance?

Remember the days
It was we who would start
The party and go on
Till we’d exhausted the dark?

[the answer was yes to those last two questions.]
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Just before we wrote the above cheesy val’s day poem, we met a cop named Wisdom on the trotro. He insisted on escorting us all the way down a dark road to the Alliance Francaise. “I love you guys,” he proclaimed so boldly. “Do you love me?” Love you? I barely know you. He was so insistent that it was a bit frightening, given his position of authority, and his gun. But he was just being friendly, took our phone number and never even called. I feel so used.