on arriving to the room lit with smiles, open palms, we cried of joy — that after a long sojourn in a dark country, the red sea finally ferried us home.
morning dons the pride of a bride in her bridal outfit. we reach out to it as though we're a cathedral in waiting.
& the carnival starts. guns making fireworks bullets thorning butterflies the sky taking an offering of souls.
when home drags you to a boat or train or truck, you learn that home is not a building but a journey for survival.
we suit our broken ribcages, brief all our dreams into cases as we become mobile maps traversing desolate borders.
Oluwatobi Ezekiel Poroye is an economist, teacher and poet. His works explore the concept of home and leaving, silence, grief and adulthood in Africa. He writes somewhere in Ogun, Nigeria.