BAPTISM

By Ayoade Olamide

it is sunday / again / & i'm performing holy 
communion in my body / searching for the 

perfect psalm to pray out of this merycism /
how can I be purged of these impurities without fading?

i shepherd myself to a bone meadow /
nailed a wooden cross to my forehead / then /

stuffed my spirit with frankincense & myrrh /
this is how i exorcize myself from the abyss /

washed myself in the red sea with hyssop /
diffusing my iniquities in the waters /

lord / how have i grown to become a desert land? /
how have i grown to become a metaphor for unholiness? /

this poem is a liturgy of nomenclature / to rename 
everything that i've lost to the hands of apostasy /

there's a scar on my faith / & in it / i search for miracles /
tiny miracles that break one into a bloom of revival /

Writer's Biography

Ayoade Olamide, NGP i, studies Mass Communication at Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ogun State. He is the author of "Poets Don't Sleep" & the fifth-place winner of NSPP 2022.

​His works have appeared in PoetryColumNND, Eremite Poetry, Hyacinth Review, PepperCoast Lit, IbadanArts, Artslounge, Woven Poetry, The Academy of the Heart, and Mind, Ariel Chart, WattNigeria & elsewhere.