A broken country is not a Santorini comfort,
Not blessed with the serenity and grace
Of beauty and tenderness. A broken country
Holds bullets at the entrance of every room
Of freedom, machetes and fists strategically
Placed at the crevices of every place you’d want
To call home. A broken country has the accent
Of a cry, high pitched misery at the climax
Of rain. A broken country is a vineyard of
Viscous pollens; foxglove; oleanders;
Lilly of the valley, a broken country is a
Bouquet of fallen heroes, their pledge and
How the history they wrote was swept off
Of our hands like silk sent slowly sinking
In the vagueness of a sentence.

A broken country is
everything that stretches from the
Borders of our bodies,
Everything this place has made us into.

Olalekan Ayodele is a poet and spoken word artist who is passionate about words and weaving them into lyrics. He loves travelling and taking in nature. He is currently working on his debut chapbook and has works appearing or forthcoming in Eunoia Review,  Konya Shamsrumi, Kalahari Review and others.