‘THE PASSING THROUGH’, ‘THE TALE OF CROWDS’ & ‘FOR EVERY FIRST-TIMER ALIVE’
Photographer - Tobi Brun
THE PASSING THROUGH
I always had enough smiles
to last me these few days.
I do not want to talk about it.
I have talked so much about it
and settled down to be miserable.
I have blended with the mirage
of people. And you are not allowed
to wear your skin inside out.
Time is a dream and everyone
is asleep. And from this side,
no one knows who will ever wake.
But it is all part of the story.
I have settled for so much
tenderness, now I cannot say
if I am living right or if this dress
fits or if my wardrobe
is vomiting its skeletons.
THE TALE OF CROWDS
I build strangers from themselves
just to feel again
because a stranger is a stranger
no matter how beautiful
the sketch of your heart is
at the back of their hand.
I thought my thoughts were intrusive
until I realized
that everything up here
was building a window to escape.
I started buying books
I'll read tomorrow.
That should keep me living
until tomorrow.
FOR EVERY FIRST-TIMER ALIVE
In this world lies the world you crave, so rest.
Your farsightedness is hindered by the facade of sanity.
Death is that accident we won't escape,
in order to escape this world.
You have paid the motherly price
and kept stripping the world off its air
until you no longer have to fight to keep your heart beating.
You are trying so hard, God wiped your brows
and moistened the dreams of anxious children
who cannot wait to soar with capes unfurled.
Up here, I seek God's face.
I open the windows between my fingers
to type these poems in.
My mouth is the door; I'm still learning to close it.
I found myself amidst spring with familiar faces.
There, my hands were branched plants about to bud.
The world forgets your trying.
Up here, I've watched everyone float down like mud waters
but still get painted into oceans.
Oladejo Abdullah Feranmi, a black poet, won the Deconflating Surveillance with Safety contest and received commendation at the 2024 HART Prize for Human Rights. He was a finalist in the Hayden's Ferry Review Poetry Prize '23, with work featured or forthcoming in POETRY, Heavy Feather Review, Strange Horizons, and more.
