REDEMPTION
Olalekan Hussein
tonight, let's imagine I'm in our family’s garden
trying to entomb some monochrome memories inside a half-broken flower pot
like a woman buries her newly vomited fetus' placenta out of sight;
let's pretend I was not pained when death
sneaked into our home & plucked the most ripened fruits in our garden,
the favorite hairs that sketched sweet smiles in our wrinkled faces like a maquillage
& the favorite songs that tickled our buttocks into a dance.
let's pretend & pretend & pretend till our eyes are a coast empty of water.
tonight, I wish to go to a holy place where light can
embrace me out of silhouette—where I can knot water
without the fear that it could s-h-a-p-e-s-h-i-f-t into an elegiac one—where I can weep tears that
will be christened as tears of joy—where I can repose in grace & not grave—where I can sing
songs of joy that won’t sound
like a dirge or rend my mouth into shards—where I can dance to my favorite songs
without the fear that my legs would be pallbearers to journey me home.
again, let’s imagine I am going to revisit my old English textbook
where suffix looks like a friar’s calligraphy, so I can prefix re+demption to substitute doldrums with an eternal redemption.
& as a nightingale, songs of joy will flow out of my larynx like cascade.
trying to entomb some monochrome memories inside a half-broken flower pot
like a woman buries her newly vomited fetus' placenta out of sight;
let's pretend I was not pained when death
sneaked into our home & plucked the most ripened fruits in our garden,
the favorite hairs that sketched sweet smiles in our wrinkled faces like a maquillage
& the favorite songs that tickled our buttocks into a dance.
let's pretend & pretend & pretend till our eyes are a coast empty of water.
tonight, I wish to go to a holy place where light can
embrace me out of silhouette—where I can knot water
without the fear that it could s-h-a-p-e-s-h-i-f-t into an elegiac one—where I can weep tears that
will be christened as tears of joy—where I can repose in grace & not grave—where I can sing
songs of joy that won’t sound
like a dirge or rend my mouth into shards—where I can dance to my favorite songs
without the fear that my legs would be pallbearers to journey me home.
again, let’s imagine I am going to revisit my old English textbook
where suffix looks like a friar’s calligraphy, so I can prefix re+demption to substitute doldrums with an eternal redemption.
& as a nightingale, songs of joy will flow out of my larynx like cascade.
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BIO:
Olalekan Hussein, NGP VI, is an emerging poet who writes from Lagos, Nigeria, where he studies in an Arabic/Islamic institution, Darul Falah. an aspirant of the University Of Ibadan. He finds joy in Literature as he sees it as a surgery to calm himself. A Best Of The Net Nominee with works published & forthcoming in: The Shallow Tales Review, Brittle Paper, Third Lane Mag, Rigorous, Aster Lit, Lumiere Review, Fiery Scribe Review, amongst others. Find him on: Twitter @Waliullah_06 |
