Self Adulation means many things to a poet.
Wale Ayinla wrote this….
Planes fly higher than birds.
Birds flock more in unity than loneliness.
Grief is bilabial. My face is rare
on the skin of the air inside me.
Somebody calls me a cave.
I call myself a living testament—closed
on the inside by a sacrifice. I buy words
for myself. You see, I see colours the way
the earth grinds dust. The way the forecast alters
itself. They say it will rain tomorrow
but I crave water in the sun-burnt noon.
They say thunder will fall from the teeth
of the sky. I welcome it with my ears
tucked in my palms. As voiceless as the night
may be, the stars scream into my pupils.
They keep what is not theirs. A word before
a body sets its bones on fire. My throat yearns
for places to grow this speech. & I am
a sickle carving the wind to myself.
A leaf falls from my body every night.
– Wale Ayinla
