Read Time:1 Minute, 23 Second
I burn my father's prayers in a heap
of hemp, & marijuana. I, vagabond
because the wind will not leave me.
The road ahead is a forbidden way
leading to a discotheque for lost boys.
You are trying to say home, but I mistake
it for run, & so I leave. A child, homeless.
Because there is no home in me.
I, siren song because the voice of whom
I trail is an echo in the dust, lost in silence.
The people I love are memories fleeting
away like embers. My mother's face, a ball
of gas moulded into the geometry of a solid
cloud. I do not remember her so the cloud
rains on me to teach me her touch. It becomes
harder to remember my name. I, eclipse
because my body lives inside a shadow's hut.
The elegy of the black swan in the forest is
for me, for things lost. I want to return like
a soul from a dream, but the wind tethers me.
I, wind because I am the child with legs that
know no home.
Adesiyan Oluwapelumi, TPC XI, is a medical student, poet, essayist and assistant Editor of Fiery Scribe Review from Nigeria. Winner of the Cheshire White Ribbon Day Creative Contest (2022), & 1st runner-up in the Fidelis Okoro Prize for Poetry (2023). His works are published/forthcoming in Fantasy Magazine, Poet Lore, Tab Journal, Poetry Wales, Variant Literature & elsewhere. A 2023 Adroit Journal Summer Mentee & a 2023 SprinNG Writers’ Fellow, his works were selected for inclusion in the Annual Outstanding Young Writers Anthology( Paper Crane, 2023). He tweets @ademindpoems.
