Exile

By Olúwádáre Pópóọla

All things are lost,

And home is a culinary for them

 

My father is an archaic man

And has a still smile in photo frames,

Because his body is an unexiled lingo

I still tell him the things we call men

Are a mirage

And a closer stall will bring the earth to our noses

 

My home is the buried places of a culture,

Tough roads to joy,

We & it, a demo of anathema

 

We draw lives from ourselves,

A butterfly from nectar,

A rosary from wishful hands,

Tears from a melodrama,

A female praying mantis beheads its male counterpart

And will soon be a mother

I tell her not to worry,

If there is a bag of bones, then there is a bag of flesh

 

Today, I’m a wild flower

In a meantime of filled mouths

& tomorrow, I’m a broken song

In ellipsis where grief lingers

 

The day is an artist that understands the lingo of grief,

Changing its loincloth into what evolves night

Our fathers chose to call a type of exile their home,

But for love,

We gave its lingo buoyance on our tongues,

And our mothers received eyebags in return

 

In the hour of grief,

The stars are the lampstands,

Singing of a leaving,

The moon is the praying mat on our patio,

Telling us to seek our joy in lost places

 

The dawn is answered prayers

That we indeed find joy in exile

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Author:

Olúwádáre Pópóọla (he/him) is a poet or so he thinks, a student of Microbiology and a Sports Writer for a media company. He writes from the famous city under the rocks and longs to see the world without discrimination of any form. The best of his names given by his grandfather, he is learning how images are made from words. Find him on Facebook and Twitter @Kunmi_sher.

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This piece is a part of DISTANCED 2.0.