Escape Route

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.