I am learning to hold a pen instead of a knife, to peel a metaphor open and find solace. To find salvation in the gospel of poetry. To hold grief like a shadow beneath the torch of imageries and carve words into therapeutic pills. I am learning to write my story in ways that defies fears. To drown in a sea of light every darkness rooted in the body. To diagnose, treat and to cure every ache. I am learning to palpate my tongue in a parenthesis of happiness and tranquility. I am learning to wear language like an hard skin, like a protective layer shielding me from the banes of existence. Here, in the realms of puns, I cull joy cradled in the follicles of consonance and assonance, and like a mother loves a child, I cuddle every confetti of diction. When I write, the bones of the dead quivers, chains splinter and bodies fall like rain into an ocean of cleansing water. With every pain written, the self is reborn, made into a being cured of wounds and scarring memories. When I write, I paint the landscape of my life and it is beautiful.
Adesiyan Oluwapelumi, TPC XI, is a poet/essayist from Nigeria. He was the winner of the Cheshire White Ribbon Day Creative Contest (2022) and the 1st runner up in the Fidelis Okoro Prize for Poetry (2023). His works are published in Poet Lore, Tab Journal, Poetry Wales, IHRAF, Brittle Paper and elsewhere. A 2023 Adroit Journal Summer Mentee and a 2023 Fellow of The SprinNG Writers Fellowship, he reads poetry for the Kitchen Table Quarterly and is the Assistant Editor of Lean and Loafe Poetry Journal. He is the author of Ethos (Ukiyoto Publishing). He tweets @ademindpoems.