green wooden chair on white surface

LIFE IS A PROPER FRACTION 

by Damilola Omotoyinbo

i am neck-deep in a quagmire, my mind is a 

gallery holding the dire portraits of my life

 

on my flesh, pain has made scars and 

incisions that even time cannot heal

 

here my shadow keeps opening doors i 

have shut, my mind keeps playing a saudade

 

call my body a home ransacked by storm, abode

of a stranger birthed on the christening of death

 

i have tried to live under broken roofs, build 

my shelter in the heart of a homeless man 

 

i have tried to fold into myself, make

home out of the cleft of my mouth 

 

i took a trip from pain but was trailed by 

pain and its companion, grief 

 

is pain not the after-taste of pleasure 

when life itself is fighting to strike a balance 

 

a little dose of pain and a pint of happiness, life

is a  proper fraction, but i try to tweak the figures

 

today, i am the woman building a home 

with scars and stories, call me the seer 

 

tomorrow, i will build another 

with songs and the wings of butterflies

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Damilola Omotoyinbo believes in the power of the pen and the positive difference it can make in our world. She has work/interview published at Afritondo, Kalahari Review, Konya Shamsrumi, Praxis, Hack writers, The Nigerian Tribune News Paper and elsewhere. Damilola is a fellow of the Ebedi International Writers’ Residency. 

She is Damilola Omotoyinbo on Facebook & Instagram, she blogs at damilolaomotoyinbo.wordpress.com.

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