Body as a Metaphor

On a sunny Sunday, pastor said we should shout seven fires.
But for me, my body is a flame. a burnt offering. a burnt incence.

This body is littered with ugly things.
Littered with skulls ripped.

This body is Golgotha, becoming
a cave of skulls choked with dry bones.

Lord, Moses me. Let me walk & bask
amidst the giant seas & come out alive.

This body is a home that homes terror, the homeless man—
all space inside it contains fear.

This body is an ocean that lost its energy
to bear the weight of its ripple.

The Other Names of Home in a Desolated Country

When they ask you
the other names of home
in a deserted country,

Tell them. Say,
home is a bag of worries,
ready to castigate your honor.

Say, home is a sandcastle
where a wrecking ball annihilated.

Say, home is a barrel of a gun
chasing a boy away from his father
with fire under his feet.

Home is a humid voice,
muttering “hurry, depart from here.”
Who stays where a knife
is placed On his/her thumb?

Say home Is a color of amber,
of pains,
& sorrow.

Say a home is a wall painted in black
where obituaries
advertise early deaths.

I know a boy who found a home
in a place filled with a bag of bones,
enveloped with the cloak of death,
till he pressed the painful exit button:
gone too soon.

Home is a dark sea.
You keep falling into craggy waters
Till your finger shows no more.

Love is an Alien Tongue

I hear little prayers slipping from my mother’s lips.
that may we not fall into the prey of love.
that may our door not open for the man we hardly recognize.

mother is an echo of words. her words carry pedagogy like breeze to my ear.

mother says:
love is a foreign language like colonization in Africa.
I do not speak what I do not comprehend.
I teach you how to stay in the shell of silence as a home does after the mayhem.
I teach you how to wear your bravery on your sleeves.

Be like a snake. hide under the meadow,
but know who you trust
for they will cut you like grass.
I do not speak of love.
one thing love will leave you with is a broken heart.