In The Dream Where You Wake Up To Everyone You Love Talking Science
By Michael Okafor
The last thing you'll notice is that
this poem is a portraiture of your fears.
For once, your father is listening to your
mother as she gives a lecture on
silence and how to test for gag
reflex using a man's fist. The paradox
of falling: in the vacuum of your
family's mental illness, your
brother accelerates towards dust and
your sister is trying to prove the duality
of a rope: both elastic and necklace;
her body a simple pendulum—
To-and-fro. To-and-fro. Someone is
measuring her oscillation. And you're
worried her body's amplitude is not
the most brutal enunciation of motion.
You catch yourself become a sigh,
every feet is paperweight, dancing to
the onomatopoeia of words describing
falling bodies as postscripts—a refusal
to admit that language is an infection.
Michael Okafor is an Igbo-born writer from Nigeria. His works explore family, grief, loss, and want. He is a member of the Nwokike Literary Club. A fellow of the SprinNG Creative Writing Fellowship. A first runner-up at the 2023 SprinNG Annual Poetry Contest. His poem has been longlisted for the Briefly Write Poetry Prize 2023. He has works in, or forthcoming in, Writers Space Africa, The Borderline Review, Shuzia Magazine, Riverbed Review and elsewhere. He writes from Enugu, Nigeria. You can connect with him on Instagram @okaformichael0808, and on X @okaformichael_.