Listen Boy
I see you, worm boy.
You ally with things that can easily wash away.
Like silence. Like solitude. Like moments. Like money.
For your hyperhydration, your bones are hypocalcemic.
You wish to pluck a sun-ripened fruit from a mango tree,
& You’re still a green grass who needs to be wet with dews.
Who needs to lock himself in the karaoke of breezes.
Who needs to sail at the shoreline of the ocean,
Not inside the ocean. & Not outside its reach.
Listen, silence is sneaky—like worms, they’re good for body
Just as they can turn your muscles to meat.
Just as they can expose your bones like a secret.
& Money. It comes riding moments, the bicycle—
Its chain is not agile enough to last long,
But can always be fixed. & When it wears out, it can be renewed.
& Don’t say scars are forbidden parts of the body for eyes.
Stretch your hands to the weightless
wind wailing through your window.
Watch as your worries become the wind.
Watch as the sun emits its rays into your room.
Watch as your room glows—reflecting its light
Back outside the window. Back to the world.
Watch as you become the light.
Abdulbasit Oluwanishola, SWAN V, is a young Nigerian poet who writes from Ilorin, Kwara State. He’s studying Agriculture in Usmanu Dafodiyo University Sokoto. He is the winner of the PCU Eid Celebration on-the-spot poetry contest 2023. He is shortlisted in the Dawn Project Writing Contest 2023. His works are up/forthcoming on A Long House, Kalahari Review, Visual Verse, Ninshãr Arts, World Voices Magazine, Full House Literary, Beyond the Veil Press, and elsewhere. He tweets @OO1810107.
The Marbled Sigh 