How are you?
I mean, how broken are you?
Are you only scarred?
In fragments? shattered?
Cracked vase. A mirror hit against stone.
We are all broken things, perhaps,
With ranging degrees of fall.
How are you holding?
I mean, are you neck-deep into drowning?
Are you choking or you are floating well?
Don’t look away, you should answer.
Wait, are you losing breath?
How are you holding up, tell me?
How many times have you lost yourself
In the space of a brief quiet?
How many times were you lost in the moment/
Time?
Ever lost language to silence in between conversations,
Diving into nothingness like a pool?
Share with me, I’m broken, too.
How many times your mouth burns
Into an opera of silence—
A cathedral of loneliness? Alright. alright. Are you happy?
Ayiyi Joel, TPC XVI, is a young aspiring poet from Edo State in Nigeria. A Best Of The Net Nominee. Winner of the Shuzia Epiphany poetry competition. He emerged as a finalist in the Kofi Awoonor Poetry Prize ’24, Shuzia New Canvas poetry competition.
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