Bayo Aderoju
Bayo Aderoju is a poet, essayist, playwright and fiction writer from Nigeria. He holds a first class B.A. in English. His works appear in Praxis Magazine, Spillwords, Kalahari Review, Ngiga Review, Nantygreens, Sub Saharan Magazine and The Shallow Tales Review. He spends most of his time in his head but you can seldom find Bayo on Twitter.
A Relic of Blood
I dreamt I was drowning in a pool of blood,
in Father's words
relating that I came first as a stillbirth
and finally as Mother's killer.
I learnt my story
as a placid lake of blood,
of Mother's blood in labour room
oozing gently like Father's tears,
the stubborn streams he could not fight.
I wish the ugliness had no relic
but the red complexion I wear about
like a sackcloth
is a totem of guilt.
Stillbirth, Mother's killer:
Father's bluntness echoes daily in my head,
long after his lonely death,
to lacerate my imagination
like a dagger
and replenish the lake
in which I drown every night
as a ritual of identity.
Hope is the Next Habitable Planet
Hope is the next habitable planet
where we'll stay all night
to unlearn bitterness
and take back gracefully to life
when sun peeps again
and roosters crow
to disengage lullabies
from our nightmares.
The path is a fragile tunnel
but Mother rows daily,
safely
with her permanent supple smile
that commands moon,
and the watery meals
she serves for dinner
with love,
with spells
like voodoo concoctions
for sedation
and memory impeachment.
The path is a turbulent sea
and the sour taste
but we're blithe,
braving undulations
till we dissect a ghost,
till we capsize.
Finding Myself
I by dreaming far
dared a sea of labyrinths,
lost my spirits
to inadequacies
overarching and countless
like the hair on my pores—
black curly hair
like a colony of army ants.
The last day, I felt void
and went to find myself in a jagged mirror.
I saw hairs,
tangled, blooming
like grasses at a bank,
over sheer paleness
as if I were a river,
as if I were water.
I stared
till my eyes quivered:
till I vanished
through the crevices.
The labyrinths then said:
you wander too wild
like a needle lost in Nile.