POEM: RUSTY KEYS by Olaitan Humble

 

when i see rusty keys 

       i see my father in the middle 

       of a dilemma he tried to hide forever // trying to escape

       from himself with himself as an

       accomplice // he forgot he told me stories

       of yesteryear when we sat on our disquietude // a lifetime

       ago it seems when he snapped his fingers to trap me

       into his American Dream.

       

my father and i—

       we are a gasket to humanity but

       quick am i to forget

       that a word called freedom exists // rusty keys

       are a canvas of endurance & my 

       father is a mastermind of this art.

i am so much like my father

        but my wiser son calls me a

        stainless key // for he sees doors get opened

        even those which master keys dare not open—his mother.

Olaitan Humble is a Nigerian poet and pacifist who likes to collect quotations and astrophotos. He won the People's Choice Award at EW Poetry Prize Awards 2020. Poetry Editor for Invincible Quill Magazine, his works are featured and/or are forthcoming in Crêpe & Penn, Wine Cellar Press, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Words & Whispers, Giallo, AGNG Mag, CỌ́N-SCÌÒ, Doubleback Review, The African Writers Review, Ngiga Review, Cultural Weekly, EroGospel, Konya ShamsRumi, POEMIFY, the QuillS, The Wanderlust Literary Journal, and Boys Are Not Stones Anthology II, among others. He tweets @olaitanhumble.