Alone, A Low-Key Umbilical Wound Owe
I entered the hush where ancestors spoke
in fractured echoes, wrapped in colonial smoke.
My name bore the weight of rivers split
half saltwater, half sacred spit.
The wound is round, small, unseen
a soft red knot between spirit and skin.
They said I was born
of stories torn,
between the gourd and the gun,
between the exile and the sun.
Each breath I take is a ledger of blood,
owing debts I did not sign
but carry in the way my bones hum
when the drum calls home.
Alone, but not untouched.
The umbilical thread may be cut
but it coils in memory’s dirt,
where my great-grandmother’s whisper
rattles like dry kola in a calabash.
She tells me,
“To be born in contradiction
is to inherit the power to choose
which gods to rebuild
and which lies to refuse.”
Low-key, I keep the wound clean
not to heal it,
but to remember that
I walk the fault line between
what was broken
and what breaks free.
Not healed,
but hallowed.
Alone, a low-key umbilical wound owe
not shame,
but a shining.
Not a scar,
but a map.
Ibukunoluwa Ayodele Omole
2-8-2025
