By Eniola Abdulroqeeb Arówólò
these syllables foaming in my mouth
like bubbles resurrecting on the face
of a lagoon are tasteless & ominous
when requiems keep bursting out of me
like unstoppable deluge. i filch a song
from the mouth of a derelict thrush
and tuck it neatly inside my larynx; doing this,
maybe my days are going to be stretched further.
how do i suck this grief up monopolising me
when sorrow is a hummingbird that hovers above my head?
i gawk at the portrait of father on the bullet-fissured wall
just as his heart hollowed in the higgledy-piggledy of war
& a nile breaks out of my eyes. mother was a spoil
of war too. after three days of mourning in this room
where my body is reducing to an emaciated almajiri, i decide to eat
and my tongue recoils, retches until earth embraces my vomit.
there’s something more fallacious than the flat earth theory
which is me rebirthing happiness that once loitered here.
BIO:
Eniola Abdulroqeeb Arówólò is an emerging writer and a student of Mass Communication who enjoys to write on child abuse, inequality, politics and domestic violence. His works have appeared on Brittle Paper, Rough Cut Press, Salamander Ink, Eremite Poetry, Mixed Mag, Ninsha Arts, Arts Lounge, Ngiga Review, Nanty Greens, and shortlisted in BPPC JUNE/JULY ANTHOLOGY. At his leisure time, he is either writing, reading or binge-watching cartoons