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[“Memories, like a carbon dioxide, can be a poisonous excess,
choking the soul & lead to slow asphyxiation of joy.”
]

there are things that are toxic to a bo(d)y, // one is memory. let’s say i have consumed more loss // than what my body can hold. // tell me, am i not hypoxemic? // i am short of euphoria. // i am dyspnea. let me tell you // how this starts with me, six years after // my mother let me out of her cavern: //  there is a way, God says ameen // to the words of lovers testing new hypothesis. //  my mother, a scientist, buried // what took her life inside her belly. // to every woman who jinx on specimens // at the hands of their husband, i hope you are saved. // & i wonder, what buffers the non-equilibrium // state your body is going through? // i start this poem again with ho(p)e: // there are things that eat one up; one is hope. // i cultivated a land of flowers on my skin, // & it grew merriment. but beside it are weeds: loss, grievances // & memories, coiled around its roots, // suckling life until some // become wilted. again, i enter this poem // with (re)lief: i wonder when will our bodies // learn to weed distress? i think there is always // a way to keep those parasites competing // against us for survival: pesticide, herbicide // & rodenticide, but the only thing that tickling // at my ear is suicide. Elohim, do i mean to say content can outshine its creator? // loss, picturesque memories, & memories morphed into grievances. // then, it sneak into a body. what else do you // know about them if not pains & shortage of breath, with great accumulation of suffering?

 

 

[Editor’s Note: Publication of this poem was made possible by a gift from Lisa Nohealani Morton during our annual Kickstarter.]



Ismail Yusuf Olumoh is a Nigerian creative writer and teacher & a spoken word artist. His works are published and forthcoming in Palette Poetry, Eunoia Review, Nanty Greens, Eboquills, Afrihill Press, Literary Yard, Fevers of the Mind, Poemify Publishers, Festival for Poetry, De Curated, Synchronized Chaos, Willi Wash, World Planet Anthology, and others. He writes from Ilorin, Kwara State. When he is not writing, he enjoys reading or cooking.
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