Suffering Is An Old Name

by Omolabake Salako

Lagos, Nigeria

My mother places me inside her aching mouth, every dawn/day/dusk/night,

within the endless torment of her tongue whispering unholy prayers,

Her god must consume my flesh & blood for breakfast/lunch/supper,

she prays my flesh hasn’t become rotten & my blood still flow red,

for daughters are to be kept away from dirt like pigs fattened for slaughter,

She strips me naked for my morning christenings & doesn’t choke from the fumes of my burning body,

she counts the scars on my skin & scrubs me with a metal sponge like I do not bleed,

My blood becomes my baptism waters & I am washed anew,

she says my body is the sky & my scars are a constellation of shadows,

shadows that conceal my sorrow like a cold & empty child on a rainy day,

My mother calls for her god to devour me again & my body is left a smoke without a fire,

my body is the host of my mother’s sins & my tears overflow with her repentance,

I wear my mother’s pain around my neck like the fire on a matchstick,

she says her mind is troubled & I was born from her brokenness & her heart remains whole,

but my mother lies for she inhales my pain like the scent of her overdosed pills,

My mother places the image of my body inside her mournful eyes,

she drags the edges of my brown lips to shape a gloomy smile,

& today she bestows me with an old name, Suffering.

LUCID

by Omolabake Salako

Lagos, Nigeria

My Mother lies of her sorrow–

I watch her recite odes to her pain/ in a dialogue soaked in anguish and suffering/ eyes resembling two red suns battling for the day/ weeping for the kind of happiness stifled by the night’s air/ & when tears finally flood through the openings on her face/ as her heart engorges and can no longer hold the voices of pain/ her dam breaks releasing loud and heavy wails/ & her swollen eyes finally reach for mine,

For she knows I am there & I am not my mother’s pain.

My Father lies of his love–

I listen to the compassion in his screams/ I see the hunchback of his burdens/ & how they weigh upon his large heart/ submerging his love whose hands still clinch to the surface/ & how pain descends upon him like the spirit of God/ looming upon his face as  shadows hang above his head/  yet he brings home a basket of fruits and smiles through the suffering in his teeth/ & his saggy eyes finally settle upon mine,

For he knows I watch his pain & fathers do not cry.