notebook fragments.

a for autumn. the family tree is                stripped—off its leaves.

because life is as simple as ABC / I ate up 26 memories.
          because C is for children, constipation, cholera & coffin.

this is how my alphabet tastes like:
                     a drop of ink a drop of blood.

now I know my ABC.

two boys were ashed for mispronunciation: guy. gay.
Webster: gay — 1. happy, lively, colourful.           2. homosexual.

funny how their pleas sounded like my nursery rhymes.
                another one silenced like the b in debt.

letter S slithers like a snake to a boy’s laughter slaughter.
                he was my classmate in nursery two.

Small letter /i/ reminds me of my step brother.
dis—mem—bered,                his two arms gone. I lost my vowels.

now I can’t find E in my R_ST again.

now I know my ABC.

digging for meaning — the distance between e & i
on my alphabetical table.                I fell in love & b r o k e
                     my heart.

digging for the meaning of life,                the knife
chipped off my A on the alphabetical table: B for blood. C for cut.
                     D for death.

now I know my ABC.

                     but the end is the beginning
for a boy whose table is dis—tor—ted: Z, Y…           why?

why do I keep
falling for you? / like rain? / like tears?

father re-married for the fifth time. the family tree
looking like MNVWX; like sticks falling on each other.

now I know my ABC (?)

P for problem. how do I explain to my step brother
           that knife doesn’t rhyme with life?
                     & it’s not a writing material for a boy’s body?

A for apple,           father got his Adam’s apple sliced,
                my brothers took a bite.

It took me six years to learn the difference
in writing p q b d           because they all look like brothers at war.

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Poetry © Sodiq Oyekanmi
Image: kropekk_pl via Pixabay/Matthias Heyde on Unsplash