Metamorphosis by Adesiyan Oluwapelumi (17, Nigeria)

[Content Warning: suicide ideation]
​
June will begin like a pupa unfurling itself into a butterfly,
into a new life, into a boy heralding light into his dark soul.
& this is me saying i want my life to be as bright as the morning sun
but the night seem like an odyssey i will
never be able to finish. like a caterpillar,
my mind slowly trudges to thoughts of suicide

& when i think i have done it, my body slips
like slime from the hands of death.
i am still wearing last month's memory like
an unbuttoned shirt, unwilling to remember
but reluctant to forget. tomorrow again
i will be a metaphor for a rising star
but i am tired of falling into night, into
abyss ,into solitude. i do not want to be
a detritus of life. i want to be a boy
living immortally in joy. i want to wake up
tomorrow
&; be the sun of my own life.