FINDING HOME BY AIRE OMOTAYO

the tears in my eyes were rivers sending tributaries
into a vast sea of grief; each time I rowed a boat across them
to take me to a place where the night drinks elixirs of calmness,
I found myself drowning again and again by the troubled waves
breaking my skin into shards of memories.

the marks on my palms were cardinal points of a compass
that led to a broken road; I treaded them in search of a country
and found my mouth stuck between the legs of street lassies teaching
my lips the language of boys that wore the skin of silence on their tongues
when their homes turned into catacombs whose walls were built with blood.

my heart bears the scars of a tribe whose tongues were dissected
into dialects where the word “life” is “death” in their understanding;
I spoke their language and became part of a people with oil wells
at their backyards and a gun in their throat filled with bullets of
lost souls waiting on the nether end in search of peace.

the cracks on my feet are creeks from an estuary, where the cascade
of fresh waters and sea waters drew their swords to broker peace
between their waves; I sat on their shores in search of bliss and all I saw
was a mirage seeping into the clouds and forming a teary mist of haunted shadows
whose silhouette are like the group of Egyptian mummies waiting for embalms.

before I become an ink on the scrolls of a forgotten history,
break my body like bread, tuck a moon in between, then sandwich me
and shove me down the throat of my dreams; then I will wait
and mend the hearts of the breaking dawn and tattoo it on the body of the sky,
I will cling on the rising sun and bask in fires of life
because home is not a place built by hands
but a place where the sun and moon shine without eclipse.

©Aire Joshua Omotayo