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_.

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