How My Body Got Soaked in Silence

Wale Owoade


 

1. I cannot speak the language of shadows

2. I want to give you my voice

3. My voice trembles like this empty street

4. My tongue is missing

5. My last neighbor died of shouting the name of God

6. The language of grief is tearfalls

7. I keep planting my audience in the backyard

8. Loneliness is a moist, empty teacup

9. Ashraf almost died of talking

10. I am tired of searching for a sound to call mine

11. I gave my word to the moon that touched me

12. Who knew my father followed the sound of bullets

13. The day he left, I watched the drapes in my room keep mute

14.  The women I know hide scars in their voices

15.  I was born in a room whose tongue is a graveyard

16. I am a graveyard.