it is not for everybody

I do not want to know the patterns of forgetting
For my teacher would look me in the face
To trace bent names she painted already in my heart.
The things written in books she gives my class
Have turned me into fogs. In my sleep, the letters
Say that I am the 27th alphabet with no name; the numbers
Say that I cannot solve its equations or find x or find y.
There is verbal reasoning. There is quantitative reasoning.
Two spaces filled in the belly of my backpacks.
But the butterfly in my arm draws itself in landscapes.
And there I go and spread myself in canvasses of my paintings.

By Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto

Biography:

He (@ChinuaEzenwa) is from Owerri-Nkworji in Nkwerre, Imo state, Nigeria and a lover of literature. He has won the Association Of Nigerian Author’s Literary Award for Mazariyya Ana Teen Poetry Prize, 2009; Speak to the Heart Inc. Poetry Competition, 2016; and recently, Castello di Duino poetry prize, 2018. He became a runner-up in Etisalat Prize for Literature, Flash fiction, 2014 with I Saved My Marriage. And some of his works have appeared in Lunaris Review, AFREADA, Kalahari Review, Praxismagazine and Raffish Magazine.