To Virgin Boys Like Me

By Ayoade Olamide

who gather their urges beside an   escalation of fire 
& watch their desires ruin to ashes.   there's a place 
in heaven, where they lead themselves to whenever
they try to unpaint the image of God       from their 
splintered self-portrait,      becoming an artwork of 
too many undefined colors– a chromatic caricature
somewhere,  there's a boy  f a r a w a y from home
trying to chase his shadow into the moon,  at night 

he burns & washes  a w a y  with  unfamiliar  light 
I want to appear to the     face of God as a rainbow
he knows how strong I have been,  the self-denials
the dancings in storms,    the swimmings in flames 
&  the unbecoming of what the society calls norms 
boys like me are called "autosexuals." I make love 
to me often, with my palms  &  lubes like vaseline 
or castor oil,    & sometimes,    a bar soap.    I bear
witness to all my unborn babies that went with the 
bathroom sewage as sacrifices to remain chaste as 
a baby uncut from his mother's placenta.    I doubt 
if my body still remains the temple of God,  but at 
the end of this poem, I remain straight as its edges

Writer's Biography

Ayoade Olamide, NGP i, studies Mass Communication at Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ogun State. He is the author of "Poets Don't Sleep" & the fifth-place winner of NSPP 2022. His works have appeared in PoetryColumNND, Eremite Poetry, Hyacinth Review, PepperCoast Lit, IbadanArts, Artslounge, Woven Poetry, The Academy of the Heart, and Mind, Ariel Chart, WattNigeria & elsewhere.