“Reflections” by Shitta Faruq Ademólá

(After Ayoola Goodness Olanrewaju) 

on days i sew my silence in the fabrics
of mother’s harsh/ness. 
                     I give
my body to relics [Expired Monuments] 

and the deadness of fire. 
                      I skin
my tongue alive, because i was the
fang on a Panther’s gum. I was
the is that never saw the backs
of maidens. i was the poet that never bleeds. 

i was a torrents of coldness on nights
when houses failed to be birthed – a ton of shivers
weighing off thousand scales. 

my mother was the goddess of twinges, 
a many muted songs of sins – i borne out of
her thrusts – I was a son of words. a placenta of 
cross-bearers. 

I want to swim back to childhood, 
touch water and, 
dream again. & sleep again, & become the
regurgitations in the mouth of past doors. 

i want to wash my eyes off the fire that is painted
on the walls where my heart is an
exhibition of scars. 

because

I am an open wall
choked by the symphony of noises… My head
is a gong of thrusts. & a million bruises. 

I am matching with the grief I carry – the songs 
of hell that writhe on the flesh of my spittle, i marry 
my sorriness with love, because one day, 

devoid of bleakness, an elixir strong enough to 
fall a mad man sane, i will swim with the writhing of my 
tongue to childhood, touch
water
and dream again.

---