by Eniola Abdulroqeeb Arówólò
i don’t have to tell you how body has become burden,
meaning there’s already so much decay you saw when
you burrowed into my pores for light or a mere spark.
it’s another Saturday noon, the carpenter across my
dorm is doing some woodwork. his daughter
reads him a ballad. and i am somewhere
inside Plath or Sexton, eating elegies like party desserts.
there is something telling me to stop fanning
the flame of grief unless it grows into a fire
and swallows me like a muezzin’s voice drowning the
mosque. i struggle with red sea in my eyes
most nights but darkness shields it
the same way a chameleon hides itself in the skin of
green leaves to escape the savagery of
its predators. and my father often thinks it’s
the tap leaking again because his son is mostly silent in his sadness.
these days, i hunt for bliss in every disaster
thinking ruin too can be joyful if i glory this body enough patience.
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