Two Poems by Olejuru Anozie

News that Breaks

Shadows. Spaces. Light, now dark and grey.
Words drown in our ears,
Deep oceans of black, white, red— breaking.
The clock ticks, the doctors preach,
But we are the shadows.
Pain now owned by numbers on display,
Our broken bodies become burdens,
Stories that intersect in pieces
Even when they can’t touch.

May

May the days ahead be filled with sorrow?
Or may they be wrapped with light?
A place between this and that,
A bridge and two destinations in one.
In its sweet single syllable,
All the uncertainty of the world hangs.
And yet it, too, holds a promise,
A gift that cannot be named but felt,
Felt in the “you” it is addressed to,
The “I” that sent it,
And the “they” that can receive it later.

Author Bio

Olejuru Anozie holds a B.A. in Psychology and is a recent graduate of the M.S Narrative Medicine program at Columbia University. She is grateful for her God-given ability to capture emotions and experiences with words. Combining her passion for the Humanities, Sciences, and Jesus, she is an active “space-maker” for marginalized stories. In her personal time, she enjoys facilitating community anti-racism discussion forums, and serves as the vice president of World Healthcare Equity Foubdation (a healthcare advocacy non-profit organization). Her academic interests include community story-telling as a medium for anti-racism advancement.

Instagram: @olejuru_a

Tags

#uncertainty #promise #may

Image Credit

Quintero, Luis. “Pixels.”World