By Olabisi Abiodun Akinwale:
Butterflies- Day 7
Coast of Butterflies
I have learnt to live in stories
that tell of boys eaten by their longings to be sky-birds,
stories where boys do not wait for love
to come to solitary places like where their mothers
became bodies fading into dusts & ashes.
& if you ask what’s love, I’ll tell you:
-a religion that do not believe in grief
-a language unaware of the leaking on our tongues
-or a glass door before a room where beings speak to shadows.
so, when you came & your footsteps were familiar
to that of girls who walk into dark bones
& make light of its gloom- I thought it’ll be [just] for a night
& dawn would come with a mirror to your reflection:
-something to be seen in glimpses of the pasts, silences & echoes.
& even when you ask my name
I thought it’s another question where flowers die,
where beauty withers & lost its pride to fire,
but you’ve been here growing into a garden,
conquering territories in my body
to where all that’ll be left of me is you.
you’re still here in my poems
making metaphors of my mind & music,
you’re still here in my art enlarging
your voice into a coast of butterflies,
& Anike, you’re still here melting in my being,
occupying rooms in my sanity with your charms.
& if you ask again, what’s love,
this time, I’ll say it’s everything that make wings of a broken body,
I mean everything that reeks and breathe you.
© Olabisi Abiodun Akinwale
Undiluted Poet
#undilutedpoetry