on days when my body is a trap site of stars, i tend to have a million men moonwalk out of my sinews, becoming sprouts from my pseudo-happy days // becoming a glittering diameter of my emptiness. say, i am a body of salt diffusing into an effigy of a phantom being. there are days i want to approach the silence that shows in flashes whenever i’m in a gathering of like-minds, and say, stop traversing space without being seen!
so you see, i want to know why i’m a bird encased in a paper tiara // or am i stacking up years for flight to the unknown someday?
on some days, my body is a miracle / a canvas for the finest of graffiti / a flicker of fire in dark alleys / the best joke told in a fit / the riot in a silent skull / an immersion in a piranha pond.
on these days, i usually do not know if my skin is in defiance of reincarnation. even as i carry my scars slung across my neck, tempting to weigh me down, i run with blue fire, hoping my fears find a way to be cremated.
this is where the excitement builds:
any time i feel empty like clouds fleeing across the sky – i hold still imagining a chrome metal used in shielding ceramics
i tell myself;
you are not ordinary. clouds give rains.
and if you are in doubt of what the future holds, take your jarred legs to the sea – sift the air in. let the waves speak to you. you need to stop seeing yourself as a lost country see yourself as the space in [ ] & break yourself into a celebratory chasm between living & slivering your fears.
seep into your body, embrace you, take strength from every tar-blue stare you have ever received that belittles your resolve - now, borrow a line from God // take no thoughts of tomorrow // hold a carnival in your body every time mornings clot into the precipice of your throat. you should speak waves & whistles & songs & western winds & mulberries - that’s how you live.
//
& if i ever try to revel in the antecedents of fallen boys, i’ll say, there is dignity in ambulating shadows.
so you see, i want to know why i’m a bird encased in a paper tiara // or am i stacking up years for flight to the unknown someday?
on some days, my body is a miracle / a canvas for the finest of graffiti / a flicker of fire in dark alleys / the best joke told in a fit / the riot in a silent skull / an immersion in a piranha pond.
on these days, i usually do not know if my skin is in defiance of reincarnation. even as i carry my scars slung across my neck, tempting to weigh me down, i run with blue fire, hoping my fears find a way to be cremated.
this is where the excitement builds:
any time i feel empty like clouds fleeing across the sky – i hold still imagining a chrome metal used in shielding ceramics
i tell myself;
you are not ordinary. clouds give rains.
and if you are in doubt of what the future holds, take your jarred legs to the sea – sift the air in. let the waves speak to you. you need to stop seeing yourself as a lost country see yourself as the space in [ ] & break yourself into a celebratory chasm between living & slivering your fears.
seep into your body, embrace you, take strength from every tar-blue stare you have ever received that belittles your resolve - now, borrow a line from God // take no thoughts of tomorrow // hold a carnival in your body every time mornings clot into the precipice of your throat. you should speak waves & whistles & songs & western winds & mulberries - that’s how you live.
//
& if i ever try to revel in the antecedents of fallen boys, i’ll say, there is dignity in ambulating shadows.
Timothy Ojo is an aquaculturist, copywriter. He likes to call himself BlueOasis. He is the co-author of the chapbook Naming our Bodies. He was longlisted in the Babishai Niwe Poetry Prize, 2018. His works have appeared in Kalahari Review, Street Light Press, and others.