The Girl Next Door

I know some really attractive people – inside and out. A prime example is the gorgeous young lady below. This shoot was really impromptu actually as I hadn’t woken up with taking any photographs in mind. But, as luck would have it, the lovely Ahua Photography showed up at my church on Easter Sunday and happened to have her camera in tow so we thought, ‘why not?’

I really liked what my friend Ore was wearing so I asked if she wouldn’t mind being featured and she said yes! Ore has a beautiful, girl-next-door quality about her. I can’t quite put my finger on it but every time I’m around her she makes me smile and her voice… Good Lord that girl can sing! She’s really intelligent too so she’s just winning at life lol.

The fact that we all (toddler included) sort of coordinate was a happy coincidence and thus too much of an opportunity to pass up immortalising. The dress I’m wearing brings me a lot of joy and I always feel really good when I’m wearing it – like I can take on the world or something. I think everyone should own at least one item of clothing like that.

The poem below came about as a result of me thinking of the various types a girls [and boys] next door and then letting my imagination run wild (Note: it’s not about Ore).

Don’t you just love spontaneity?

The Girl Next Door

Potent tea the colour of airless sunsets.

Spasmodic conversations housing

hide and seek replies that make him flinch.

Eighteen awkward steps and two flat smiles

plus the woefully mistreated parquet

prostrate between them and the last discussion

his longsuffering lugholes had with her lips.

Faith is what her parents christened her.

Fitting because so little of it breathed amid

the bland expanse he called existence until

the day she tripped, fingertips first, into his life

after falling victim to the rebellious floor

she reached out for someone to catch her,

and he’s had a saviour complex ever since.

Sometimes, when the sun has crept past the horizon

and the moon is showing full face

when her every expression is stained with

loneliness, breath infused with liquor and

lies like “I need you” kamikaze from her throat

she comes purring softly, knocking at his door

his involuntary response is always to let her in.

Into the space reserved for a woman who

will love him long after daylight greets the room.

Despite the hypocritical prayers she whispers

for his salvation as she lays sobbing

in his heathen arms, he will comfort her

stroke her hair, assuring it will be okay.

All he’s ever really needed was a lot of faith.

©Assumpta Ozua 2015