Voice cultivation
Zaynab Bobi
when i said i want to be free to wear my tongue without questions,
i didn’t mean for it to come out as an ailment.
like how i didn’t mean for
i want my voice
to translate to a synonym of disrespect.
i was told to move out of what is hindering my healing,
i walk out of my body.
can you see how the closet can become dark?
though they say moving on is the beginning of healing
truth is, i have grown through seasons of silence
harvesting my voice & i still can’t feel the soil
without losing myself in the ridges of pain.
they say, the body spilling out of its bones
is walking a new path of survival
but my bones haul grief as calcium when it spills out of my body.
or is this another path of survival?
body, body, body, is it?
BIO:
Zaynab Bobi, Frontier I, is a Nigerian poet, digital artist, and photographer from Bobi. She is a member of Hilltop Creative Art Abuja branch, Poetry Club Udus, Frontiers Collective, and a Medical Laboratory Science student of Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto. Her works are published and forthcoming in Blue Marble Review, Barren Magazine, Isele Magazine, Type House Literary Magazine, Night Coffee Lit, Wrongdoing Magazine, Rulerless Lit, Harbour Review, Olney Magazine, Salamander Ink, PraxisMag, Paddler Press, Ice Floe Press, Lunaris Review, Rigorous Magazine, Olit Magazine, The Shallow Tales Review, and more. She tweets @ZainabBobi.
i didn’t mean for it to come out as an ailment.
like how i didn’t mean for
i want my voice
to translate to a synonym of disrespect.
i was told to move out of what is hindering my healing,
i walk out of my body.
can you see how the closet can become dark?
though they say moving on is the beginning of healing
truth is, i have grown through seasons of silence
harvesting my voice & i still can’t feel the soil
without losing myself in the ridges of pain.
they say, the body spilling out of its bones
is walking a new path of survival
but my bones haul grief as calcium when it spills out of my body.
or is this another path of survival?
body, body, body, is it?
BIO:
Zaynab Bobi, Frontier I, is a Nigerian poet, digital artist, and photographer from Bobi. She is a member of Hilltop Creative Art Abuja branch, Poetry Club Udus, Frontiers Collective, and a Medical Laboratory Science student of Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto. Her works are published and forthcoming in Blue Marble Review, Barren Magazine, Isele Magazine, Type House Literary Magazine, Night Coffee Lit, Wrongdoing Magazine, Rulerless Lit, Harbour Review, Olney Magazine, Salamander Ink, PraxisMag, Paddler Press, Ice Floe Press, Lunaris Review, Rigorous Magazine, Olit Magazine, The Shallow Tales Review, and more. She tweets @ZainabBobi.