Sticks and Stones | 2023 Poetry by Multidisciplinary Artist Tomilola Olumide

Sticks and Stones, 2023 | Poetry

Sticks and stones may break my bones and words can surely taint me

My skin, my soul, my high to low, your care does sure forsake me.

Love be kind to heart and mind, can’t take it much in arrears

Baby

Baby I’m tired

I’m tired

I am tired

Tired because.. this was all, everything ….. And now it’s not.

But if we use tongue to touch, sun to warm, sun to… share … it’s warmth

Black, joy, drooling, moans, happy days

And sometimes sticks and stones

I miss this

Baby I’m tired

Barren in some ways like where we stay, togetherness.

Baby I’m tired, exhausted of how you see me, dream me, conjure me.

Baby I’m tired

Tired but not tired, exhausted of expectations for you

Baby I’m tired because both …. Unsoothe (murmurs)

Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will surely taint me

Sticks and stones through cotton holes and cotton tights and cotton pants will surely make me

Sticks and stones through the ebbs and flows of our devotion can never frame me

For thy is thy kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever.

Godddd, hold me down

Hold me down

Hold me down unlike the way this dude does

Give me peace, give me unconditional peace, unlike these dudes do

Damn

In and out they’ve come, for one thing, or the other

Blended and now mended, they crack here and fix

Frazzled but straight now

Was I the vessel to move through, to heal?

Why?

Could I not have been the same with them?

Why?

Did my body need to suffer so?

Why?

I don’t think I have the words anymore.

Why?

I’m in love, I’m in so much love right now

I’m in soooo much love right now

In love with me, the thought of holding and kissing me, the thought of being still, the thought of joy, the thought of not throwing stones at my own window, the thought of being there to listen.

The thought of self-soothing, of removing from drama, from circuses that are not mine, the thought of being away in mind and heart.

The thought of self-preservation, the thought of self-preservation, the unapologetic thought of self-preservation.

The thought of running and not looking back, the thought of watching and saying Tofiakwa!, not my portion, the thought of joy and ruminating in joy, and having it be your own centre stage.

The thought of having ambition and planning, the thought of expansion of empire in mind heart and physical realm………………oooooooooogh the joys of it all. Unmatched

Quite unmatched

Nothing to hurt, nothing to taint, nothing to stop breathing, my breathing, nothing to laugh at face after I say no or stop.

No hurt no pain, no denial. No denial of my rights, of my mind, of my concepts, of my freedoms, of my peace.

The only pain that comes is only butterfly-kiss heavy, it’s not even a thing. I can feel it once and go. I feel it once and go.

I can toss and turn and go, it doesn’t pin me down and say hold on, stay still…. you like it. It doesn’t tell me that

It doesn’t disguise pain for pleasure, it doesn’t manipulate. It’s just one of those things that comes and goes… and I get up and move.

Not a truck crushing your body

I feel safe here, really safe, really really safe.

I’ve underestimated how safe I feel, but I do feel safe.

In the past, I didn’t know my power but now I do, and I feel safe, I feel joyous, I feel free at times and I feel so present. What a blessing.. what a blessing to come out of other side and see self move and grow and push through the splinters from these sticks and bruises from these stones.

To relentlessly fall and get up, to say the shattering of bones from the throwing of stones did not keep me down to the devils' woes.

To hold head high and bring self up and dust heart off and tell anxiety stop and follow through because mission is at hand, destiny is unfulfilled and you are the architect of your own journey.

Baby girl, woman, I love you

Walk