Cities

‘ my body is a country of diverse places’- Romeo Oriogun

there are doors i will never unbolt,
i mean, puberty has heralded my wrist with

bean like calluses. every day, my soul falters like
a wretched hand on a walking rod

& discipline has become a soothing mantra,
a boy sauntering through thorny shrubbery,

teaching himself to assuage his thirst with
drought, with numbing dry bones of

self-control. my lust, cowed into a chamber
fettered with a paradigm of locks

& i, an island sifting from the
geography of freedom, simmering

into a Calvary dispersed with broken appendages.
my lips, a corn stalk husked with silent dirges.

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AdesiyanOluwapelumi(he/him),TPC XI, is a Nigerian writer with works published/forthcoming in BRITTLE PAPER, Kahalari Review, Lumiere Review, WRR, CultureCult Press, Literary Cocktail Magazine, Spillwords, Poemify Magazine, Beatnik Cowboy & elsewhere. His work is also featured in the Society Of Young Nigerian Writers…