by Omotoyosi Salami
What do you do
in a dark room closing in on you,
a dark room with spiked walls?
All this knowledge could undo us. And yet
what is the point of a story
if there is no one to tell it?
There’s no real freedom unless we can all talk about how we touch ourselves in the dark to the sound of our enemies’ screams.
And here, we have the sun
burning sinners and hypocrites alike.
And here, we have the fair-haired god metamorphosing into a tyrant.
So who will step out first? Who loves the fire so much that they do not fear it?
Your god refuses to be a fair judge. What sort of judge teaches the law only to a few chosen people?
Gives the greater burden of evading tempting sins to a selected, unfortunate some?
But in spite of all this I love you. I love you despite your wrongness and the false soberness in your body.
But you don’t love me with my darkness and this is how several wars in the past were born.
Omotoyosi Salami is a poet and writer living in Lagos, Nigeria. A lot of her writing is influenced by the various inequalities that exist in her country. She has been published in Vagabond City Lit, Constellate Lit, and Brittle Paper. If you do not find her reading a book, you will find her writing something in her phone’s Notes app.
