“Forever & the Day After”

never thought i’d see your silhouette
vanish into the cantaloupe frowns of dusk.
i feel the universe climb up my shoulders
like dead planets shrinking into stray asteroids.

once, you were a comet eyes long to see,
the aurora that spellbinds cameras. but
now, you’re the darkness of the eclipse, the
solstise that keeps me furthest form light,

from redemption. now, i crave petrichor
because i’m fraying under the heated rays
of the sun just after the rains have softened
my heart. i flipped through the pages of

life but skipped prologue & epilogue.
missing was i in genesis. revelation slaps
me into splintered psalms. life tied us into
a knot, yet refused to tie up the loose ends.

walk me down the labyrinths of decaying
yesteryears, let me sprinkle the cremains of
you everywhere life refused to take us to
—forever, and the day after.

---

“Skygazing”

today, i’m in no hurry to capture the
cantaloupe beauty of the sinking sun.

i am peeling off the shrouds of my pain,
perhaps, therein hides beauty. i vacillate

between reaching for the sun losing itself
to nightfall or reaching for myself

plummeting into depths of ennui.
i’ve watched enough sunsets to find exits

beautiful, so i caress the exit would you
left in my heart—a flowering bullet

fighting time. sometimes, i wonder if the
sun tires out, if its warmth burns its soles

& it cowers into hiding. i wonder if you
ever look back at yesterdays—when the

world meant you & nothing more. i
wonder if the promises seep through your

fingers like sand, if memories crawl into
your pillows, the laughters we shared

drawling into sinister. because i am still
here,

waiting,
before darkness swallows me.

---

Muheez Olawale (he/him) is a teenage Nigerian creative with a passion for storytelling. His poem won the Chief of Army Staff Literary Competition 2024. He has works published or forthcoming in The Hooghly, Everscribe, Afrocritik, Micromance, Copihue Poetry, and elsewhere.

Twitter: @_muheezolawale

Instagram: @_muheezolawale