a poem about damnation by Adedayo Agarau

a poem about damnation     


to tell truth, this poem --
this poem about damnation, about gifting
the pericarps of my soul
to fire, about loving water
the way birds lose navigation
to winds — is about me.

//

tell me, there must have been something
surreal about water, or
                why would i dream of a flood in my body ---
why would god give us a universe halved by water
& the other half, a compendium of grief.

//

i wake to a bird falling inside my body — by this
i mean i am a field of dying baby birds
               for the wind is blessed with nameless feathers

//

how do you
pray for the damned / how do you
tell god about healing without
telling him how broken
                                & each time you mention
my name in prayer,
a bone cracks within me ---

//

sometimes, i say
amen to the winds
hoping somewhere,
someone sent a prayer for me

//

sometimes, i cut myself
with the memories
of my father’s exit.         

//

you don’t know how it feels
to wear a shadow the size of god.

//
​
i dream of a certain exile
                —where happiness
                is a little boy
                beating
                water.
                where i sit by the shore,
                watching the pebbles go & never return.



Adedayo Agarau is a student and poet hoping to make the world a little better with his words and photography. He has works up at Barren Magazine, Geometry and 8poems. His first manuscript "Asylum Chapel," is coming to light for publication and looking for a good home. Please connect with him on twitter @adedayoagarau and on Instagram @wallsofibadan, where he documents the beauty and pain of his Nigerian city home.

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