A poem where I play and backward my sorrow

Poetry by Abdulbasit Oluwanishola | From Issue 28 (Spring 2025)

After Finding My Way Home by Zaynab Bobi

Yes, I shed the last tears in my eyes at my dad’s departure. Yes, last night, my eyes were the sky & the earth was flooded. Yes, there was no s preceding X’s words. Yes, X’s words pierced & slashed my heart. Yes, I had promised a bluebird wings. Yes, wings are irrelevant to a caged bird. Yes, my body never harbors darkness. Yes, the porosity of an egg makes it coagulate. Yes, I gave serene feet to thread into my life. Yes, serenity was the guest. Yes, I was not its host. Yes, my body is a filter, separating particles. Yes, some particles are tiny enough to penetrate a filter. Yes, weeping is a balm on a wound. Yes, weeping is a pathogen. Yes, I weeped out my sorrows. Yes, sorrow is my jugular vein.

Abdulbasit Oluwanishola

Abdulbasit Oluwanishola, SWAN V, is a young Nigerian creative writer who writes from Ilorin, Kwara State.

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Author Note:

I’d like to talk about the style first. It was gotten from Zaynab Bobi’s Finding My Way Home. Before the piece itself, I’ve been nurturing the style inside my head but I didn’t have a fitting body for it. (No) thanks to my friend who sunk my heart with his words (he didn’t even know), I got the body for the style. As we’ve all known, some incidents you thought you’ve outlived are oozed out by another and stretch to more wrecking thoughts. So, I make a line for my built beliefs/promises and the following line for obvious realities/surreal things.