I begin this poem with a high-pitched fever. A damp piece
Of paper will get lit by just being inches away from my skin. I’ll
Cool my body by sitting next to a bonfire and name it a form
of therapy. In this poem, a child is seen wandering with no footwear,
walking away from home. Grapevine has it that his father and mother
are at it again. like this child, I am like an unsteady plant getting rocked
by the whirlwind at the peak of winter, dangling vigorously and hoping for a period in time that I can’t define fully. The plants call it a windbreak, I term it solitude. I give my body a whole new name, whole new clothing, one as thick as the goosebumps forming already on my skin. Mind me, this is not one that will signify my shivery spines, but one that will shield me from the torrents of the present climate. This poem is where emotions are tied around my tongue like the cotton on a moving spindle. Not a yarn less, not a yarn more. I shiver. I bend. I get twisted. Mind me not, this is what our body becomes when we wrestle against the laws of civilization. I am a foreigner in my fatherland, a rebel, a mutineer. This is a poem where different pills will get into my system. one of them will eventually take this fever away.
Amoye Favour Toluwalase
draws from vivid Imageries, life experiences, and relationships when writing his pieces. Popularly known with the pen name “The Poetic Newton,” his works have been published and are forthcoming on issues of The Literatus, Maintenant, Written Tales, Masticadores, Pickles Magazine and many others. More of his works can be found on his Instagram handle @thepoeticnewton and whenever he is on the blue app, he tweets with the handle @amoyef.
