issue three / reverie
a boy plucks despair & shows it to God
Elisha Oluyemi
in moments of darkness, i give mind to a withered flower
and wonder why it was hidden away from
the joy of spring:
the season approaches, the greens are full of longing, but thirst is a box of chocolates.
why did a man pluck a marigold and stash it in a pot?
i see the bleak of night,
how it descends upon us like the sudden rain.
does God bare their teeth and gobble up the innocence of a kid,
or they only snatch up reality like a thick duvet and drape it over him--
is this God's way of making reality dawn on him?
is this their way of enlightening this dust instead of steering him towards the forbidden tree?
i have seen the biggest wonder:
how the darkness of the womb doesn't restrain the blind baby from coming into our world.
the mother growls; the baby finds its path—the blind walking without a stick.
God's creations—full of contrasting conjunctions. all the buts and yets and howevers, broken
sentences--
and in Yoruba, shades of but are called ṣugbọn, metaphors for bad luck,
blatant echoes of darkness.
But I've just realised:
in this poem, not all buts lead us down the abyss.
say:
no light at the end of the tunnel, but the beacon may appear when you reach the end... the night is a
tunnel—until golden rays line the skies.
and wonder why it was hidden away from
the joy of spring:
the season approaches, the greens are full of longing, but thirst is a box of chocolates.
why did a man pluck a marigold and stash it in a pot?
i see the bleak of night,
how it descends upon us like the sudden rain.
does God bare their teeth and gobble up the innocence of a kid,
or they only snatch up reality like a thick duvet and drape it over him--
is this God's way of making reality dawn on him?
is this their way of enlightening this dust instead of steering him towards the forbidden tree?
i have seen the biggest wonder:
how the darkness of the womb doesn't restrain the blind baby from coming into our world.
the mother growls; the baby finds its path—the blind walking without a stick.
God's creations—full of contrasting conjunctions. all the buts and yets and howevers, broken
sentences--
and in Yoruba, shades of but are called ṣugbọn, metaphors for bad luck,
blatant echoes of darkness.
But I've just realised:
in this poem, not all buts lead us down the abyss.
say:
no light at the end of the tunnel, but the beacon may appear when you reach the end... the night is a
tunnel—until golden rays line the skies.
Elisha Oluyemi won the 2022 Lagos-HCAF Contest (Prose) and has a psychological thriller forthcoming in the 2023 Mukana Press Anthology of African Writing. He co-edited the PROFWIC Crime Fiction Anthology, Vol 1, won the 1st-runner-up prize in the 2022 Shuzia Flash Fiction Competition, and is a mentor under the SprinNG Fellowship initiative. Elisha also has writing published/forthcoming in Mystery Tribune, Brittle Paper, L=Y=R=A, The Bitchin' Kitsch, Sledgehammer, Terror House, 100-Word Project, The Milton Review, Salamander Ink, Ngiga Review, African Writer, Arts Lounge, Kalahari Review, TSTR, and elsewhere. He writes in the psychological and literary genres. Tweets @ylisha_cs.