Talk Vomit

By Fadairo Tesleem

Self-portrait with a Fistfight on memory lane

                                                                               Every day, we pray for 
                                                                                 peace and protection. 
                                                                               —  Boussam Abdullahi, 
                                                                           Nigerian refugee 

At Azraq Refugee Camp, in Syria,
The sight of guards with
their guns, a gallery of lost things:
pictures of our dilapidated huts,
the race my father ran
before the bullet outstripped him of life.
Memory unbraids the sutures
we fight so hard to heal.
My father, a mountain of endurance; yet,
the gun’s mouth is a storm of destruction
that leaves nothing in its wake. Tonight, I feel the
silence of my dead village. There is a tiny space
between what has happened and what
is going to happen, I mean: the only
time my father could hasten his pace
was before he got robbed of his breath.
I do not have records of survivors,
but I witnessed we all ran: myself,
my siblings and the girl I gifted my soul.
إنا لله و إنا إليه راجعون
was my father’s watchword,
meaning: everything God gave us
has its method of returning to him.
To be a refugee is to seek shelter from hands
that stand on triggers, from bullets that ripped
our skins, and from the flooding of our land with
our blood.

SELF-PORTRAIT WITH HYACINTH FLOWERS

“Be sure we shall test you with something of fear and hunger, 

some loss in goods or lives or the fruits (of your toil) …”  

                                                                                          {Quran 2, verse 155}

Every most times, reminiscing over a loss
Is more excruciating than the loss itself. 
In this poem, a boy is sitting adjacent his
Mother’s grave.

                 :ربي ارحم أمي   
Lord, be lenient in 
Dealing with my mother’s body 
And soul . 
This is the supplication my mouth wears
Each time I nestle her pictures against my 
Chest. For the first time, I wondered how God
Feels whenever death ferries a woman from 
Her fruits. 
This is how I choose to mourn my mother:
By placing flowers behind her grave 
And rearranging its pebbles.
                     :ربي إنّ امي في ذمتك 
                   Lord, 
My mother is, verily, under your watch.
I recite this prayer after every Solat, 
Believing that anywhere air reaches 
Becomes where my mother lives. 

Fadairo Tesleem (TPC vi) is a Nigerian poet and a  member of The Poetic Collective. He was on the shortlist for 2022’s Spectrum Poetry Contest, Abubakar Gimba’s Prize for Nonfiction (2023) & Africa Teen Writers’ Award (poetry category). His poems are published in The B’K Magazine, Geez Magazine, Dillydoun Review, Protean Poetry, Kreative Diadem, Consequence Forum, & host of other publications. Tesleem is an alumnus of the Olongo Africa Poetry workshop & SpriNG Writing Fellowship. He tweets @_olakunle_