The Tales I Tell Myself Everyday by AM Kamaal

Like the Thales of Miletus,

I tell my tales of how thousands things

Are made up of another thousands

Things in my thought:

I don't need a mouth as wide as the sky

To tell you that outside the city walls,

I see sunflowers. Lilacs. Calla lilies

Litter around the walls of my sight.

And I smile myself out to the world

Of happy hearts, and smiling minds.

I understand: the storm arrives when the storm arrives.

Transporting fear. Anxiety. And

The happy-ephemerality. And I ask

Myself how I see the storm, violencing

Our rooftop. I ask how my infant

Nephew perceive its destructiveness,

When he drops his unadulterated smiles

On my face to ponder on. After all,

Childhood is innocence, but what if,

Like easiness remained in this violent

Room we sleep, I could escape to childhood.

Live my years back in my innocence.

Dine with my hearing closed to murmurs

Of war. Wine with a cup of peace of mind

Whenever the storm comes again

When it comes again. To open my nose

To the beautiful-smelling lilies. And

Glare at the pulchritude of the sunflowers

And again to smile myself out to the world

Of the free. The city of the free.

To the great kingdom of the free.

AM Kamaal is a Nigerian poet and writer. When he's not writing, he reads Ezra Pound, and Jericho Brown, listens to Àyìnlá Ọmọwúrà songs, and watches Hollywood.