Maybe It’s Okay

Maybe we write poetry

to spell out s-t-i-l-l-n-e-s-s,

to stretch each second into a lifetime,

listening as the spring gushes

from the heart to the music it makes,

splashing across river veins.

We know the ecosystem of this body

holds the longest summer.

Maybe it’s okay to walk slow,

to cycle through the quiet dusk

and meet the face of the sunset

in a staring contest with our wishes.

Maybe it’s okay to know

you’ll win—not because you can outlast,

but because you close your fingers

when you pray.

There are few things worth pointing at

that haven’t been swallowed

by the word living.

I have two of them,

chained delicately in this moment,

one I hold close,

the other, always yours—

because “living” is too vast

to be captured twice,

but I’ve kept one

so the other might roam free

in your hands,

and together, they’ll point not to the end,

but to the endless unfolding

of what it means to be.

Oladejo Abdullah Feranmi, a black poet, won SEARCH Magazine’s 4th Annual Poetry Contest and received commendation at the 2024 HART Prize for Human Rights. Named an Outstanding Young Poet by Paper Crane Journal in 2023, his work appears in POETRY, Strange Horizons, Brittle Paper, Blue Earth Review, and more.