When we wake, the first thing we do
is wash off what’s left of the dream
bagged under our eyes, just to live
the little lives we were given
or the little lives we picked for ourselves.
We hold on to something
just to drop the emptiness in our palms;
the prayer we carry in our mouth.
We chew our names silently
and lick holiness off our tongues.
Autumn falls. Silence harvesting our throats
to find the voice box empty.
But there is light in our mouth.
The tunnels in our bones are still empty
but the river in the veins is flushing with hope.
Every tomorrow is dressed in newness.
This is the youngest you will ever be.
𐫱
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Oladejo Abdullah Feranmi, a black poet, won the Deconflating Surveillance with Safety contest and received commendation at the 2024 HART Prize for Human Rights. He was a finalist in the Hayden's Ferry Review Poetry Prize '23, with work featured or forthcoming in POETRY, Heavy Feather Review, Strange Horizons, and more.
About the Poem
“It was another morning, just like the one before and several others before that. I was sitting behind my desk, pondering the repetition, a pen in my hand and paper beneath it, trying to break the days into seconds. Then I thought, 'This is the youngest you will ever be.' After a few minutes, I looked back at the line and the words it carried, and there it was—the full piece. I can’t remember what the mornings look like anymore.”