Fences moulded from our palms
doorposts large enough to let our feet through
our giant footwears poised as gates too
structures so massive we couldn’t harbor
our architectures painted our wishes.
O! How sandy the foundations were.
A wheel was enough to travel the world
together we hopped on
pulling each other by the cloth
engines revving joyfully from our diaphragms
travellers were the fuel
stirred right and left with wood.
O! How adorable the train was.
Lettered pages were burdens,
too many sheets to flip through,
all we needed to cheer was a pack of crayons
which we chewed.
O! How we dreaded the figured ones.
The days were too short,
the nights seemed to last forever
we slept carelessly
humming void melodies
accompanied with gestures imported from China,
until the postman comes to deliver dinner.
O! How we lived each moment at a time.
Sunbeams dispersed into moonlights
thin fibres found root on our bodies
curiosity and preferences became a thing
suddenly, we were capable of thinking,
days got longer and the nights never came.
Now, we owned our own hoes and machetes
sleep became a gratifying reward.
Then it hit us-
Like our fathers
and their fathers before them,
we took a wrong turn,
with our tracks vanishing fast behind us.
Akejeje Oluwatobi is a Visual Artist and poet, who enjoys works of intrinsic socio-political subject matter.
Social Media; @akay_jeje (IG) Akejeje Oluwatobi (FB)
Photo by Gabriela Palai from Pexels