Someone I know presented this at a book club, and something about the content made me decide to share, as I told him.
I
My heart is a tomb where hope comes to live,
I go to parties of happiness to breathe,
I inhale all the light around me
and leave the parties when it gets dark,
too dark for men to see
without stumbling into the sadness.
Too dark to feel for lighters that lift the souls of men high.
I watch their fears colliding from a distance,
I giggle.
II
On quiet days
when there are no songs left in my lungs,
I write.
I like to write stories of women that died
while embracing life-
firmly
women we thought had too much of her in them
but we never cared to look beneath their skins.
On autopsy,
the pathologist said he found castles living inside them,
Castles that echoed whispers.
III
There are nights when I dream;
I am a bird, carrying happiness within my beak
Flying towards a nest I do not know.
I never get home.
An angry storm breaks my beak into two,
happiness dissolves into a stream of darkness.
I wake up screaming.
Sweating.
-OLUAFOLABI
I Feel Shadows 