Bruised knees

Broken amens

Wholeheartedness feathering

Tints of hope vamoosing into thin smoke

They don’t tell you, how we truly sprouted,

That life and lost are entirely possessed, our

Prayers have lost ways into the ears of God

Edifying winsomeness into tiny paragraphs

Courage is the skeleton for all my struggles

 

Every silence is a poem

I am lyrics to the songs I can’t sync in

This body’s turning into a silent auction

There is no roof over these vulnerabilities

My body is moving graciously towards living

My beauty is at the edge of becoming

— I know, living too is an art

— I feel because I am

 

My breathe is skedaddling

Still I erase dirt off my jackets, yesternight

My roommate tells me how he prepares Egussi

This makes me salivate, life paused for a second

It reminded me of my mother’s favorite stew

Oh! Now I feel the taste in my mouth

 

Wounds are still opening

Substantially rounded, husking

Time promised to heal them, I am waiting

Heart in ice, questions leaching from the ceiling

Hunters on the loose, these eyes are moisturized

By gifts of comfort, I am scared of loosing hope

Loosing the people I love, my chosen tribesmen

 

— For two decades

The birds have sung

Entwined, I can hear them now

They lay a melody on my tongue

I try to sing to them, they feel my joy

My new wings are surfacing, I am smiling

I think I finally found me, I am a nightingale.