in a starless sky / i find memories out of a cancerous moon
the sky / young & starless / made by the rain’s swollen palms / psalms its way across my roof / the wind hums / crickets are nostalgic of the night’s background melodies // i remember / nights of hide & seek with my friends / our trysts at the old tree house / where we played / & fought / & cried & laughed till our years together spent reached a diminuendo // i remember / the castle-building with pillows & blankets / the toys & the old video games / & street soccer in the rain / injuries we hide from our mothers / & those conspicuous like a hunchback / injuries / that later morphed into scars / to tell the tales of our bravehood during the game of bojú-bojú / we say: whoever cheat by peeping where the shadows slip in to hide / can’t be trusted with the walls // i remember F / who became the smallest coffin / his heaviness in our hearts // one night during the game of police & thief / he told me / S. i’d love to become an oncologist / so that i can cure the cancer battling with mom / & maybe one day become a pilot / so that i can go seek my father / who is now a star in the face of the sky / a star / who only shines at night / whilst we play hide & seek // but isn’t life funny that / there is no chemotherapy for dying dreams? // memories keep playing in my head / like pictures from the old vhs in the attic // we were children with dreams / wrapped in butterfly patterned shawls / dreams / the colour of rainbow / dreams / etched like the lines on the palms of our hands // we were merely children / with an ocean of dreams / some vaporizing as the music of our lives increases its crescendo // & what are dreams / if not a game of hide & seek / if not a child’s hearty oblation to his dying mother
Sodiq Oyekanmi is a poet, playwright and thespian; a student of the University of Ibadan, where he currently studies Theatre Arts. He enjoys writing poetry as he sees this as a therapeutic creative outlet. He co-judged the AKUKO Inaugural Literary Competition [Poetry] with Rosed Serrano. His works have appeared/forthcoming in Brittle Paper, Pidgeonholes, The Shallow Tales Review, African Writer Magazine, Agbowó Magazine, Echelon Review, The Drinking Gourd, Rigorous Magazine, trampset, Kalahari Review, Praxis Magazine, Olney Magazine, and BANSI: The Anthology of Boys Men & Others III. A hopeless romantic, he tweets: @sodiqoyekan
Banner: Flower Stalks, a digital art work by Robert Frede Kenter (c) 2021 Twitter: @frede_kenter
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