in a new universe in october 79AD
when the world was coloured with darkness
in a city of void and emptiness
where aliens were the citizens
and humans were slaves where ghosts went
to live for another millennia
i wore grief
upon my skin like a cardigan
and stood at the threshold that led to the gates of heaven
i put my body inside a bowl of sorrow
as if it was a shelter. because
where i come from
pain is a prerequisite
for staying alive. pain is the nutrients you are forced
to swallow for your sorrow to develop.
i saw aliens roaming about like fish. i was dumb to
their language. my eardrums opened
but were still deaf. i saw my creator who reigned in every land.
on one sunday morning, in a land called
the land of aliens, before my creator,
whose body held blood like a lipstick,
whose head stood narrow like a kite,
i laid naked before him, a lizard before a mountain of grief,
tears sojourning my flesh.
i put my skeleton on its kneel and wore it
a brown garment of humility.
its mouth
pouted the mouth of an ostrich.
its long tiny hands
s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g
like the body of a raindrop. all the grief i had experienced
kept calling my breath.
i threw my palms to my creator
and asked him to protect me from the fingers
of my country; to release my breath from its hungry incisors.
while waiting for my creator to pronounce me
a free bird, i saw my country running towards my body
i hid my body in the flesh of my skeleton
and disguised it as a bone. because
aliens’ bodies are bony, i pretended to be one of them.
i zipped down my heart like a torn flesh
and grief entered it like a capsule,
grief walked through the streets of my body like an angel,
dismantling my skeleton
and remoulding my strength. because
aliens are faithful beings
i was successful at hiding.
how will i hide again on earth
where men gulp blood like the throat of my country?
Ayòdéjì Israel, a poet, writer and editor, is a Pushcart Prize nominee. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Channel Magazine, Apparition Lit, Counterclock, Ake Review, Defunct Magazine, OneArtPoetry, Bacopa Literary Review, Sandy River Review, Whale Road Review, The Deadlands, The Bitchin Kitsch & elsewhere. You can find him on Twitter @Ayo_einstein.
Photo by Joyce Hankins on Unsplash
