POETRY

Elixir of Fate

December 1, 2022 | Issue II | Muhammed Olowonjoyin

This isn’t headache, doc, 

it has to be something else.

Because in a dream, 

I found myself between two hills of places

& watched them wrap me into apnea.

The oneirocritic says it’s a body and 

a country in a tide 

Of collapse.

Maybe this is why a home or a language or waters

Are always lost in my poems.

Maybe this is why I’m never free 

in all my poems because

Something has to hold this loss and nude. 

In this poem, I am a shooting star. 

Onlookers think it’s migration but I know it’s the curse

Of running towards wherever fate’s compass leads: 

Westerly or Eurus; Heaven or Icarian Sea.

Doc, we don’t get to choose where our bane

Makes us bleed from. Isn’t that a metaphor 

for our insignificance?

Soon, two places will burn, and 

everything in them will become

Poems, scampering for exit wounds. 

Muhammed Sanni Olowonjoyin, TPC III, studies Biochemistry at the University of Ilorin. His poems appear/forthcoming in Brittle Paper, Aôthen Magazine, Lunaris Review, The Kalahari Review, The Shallow Tales Review, Acropolis Journal, Salamander Ink Magazine, Words And Whispers Journal & elsewhere. He reads poetry for The Dodge Magazine. He tweets @APerSe_

Art Credit: Pinterest