I came to writing through paper –
library books, 
paperbacks, newspapers and periodicals,
biros and pencils 
between the lines, in the margins,
on scrap paper,
A4 and foolscap, rough books and notebooks,
perforated ring-bound pages to tear out
and start again.

In the course of that,
I became conscious of the aerodynamics of paper –
what folds made a page go straight
while others twist 
or spiral, 
crash and burn, or wait 
weightlessly 
in air 
to turn and float on down forever.
        
I put my knowledge of paper into the pen –
to know how to make a sentence 
spin
or pass in passages of thought
through turbulence
towards
an altered purpose,
its escape
from whiteness on the page,

writing angled always in the mind to flight,
to lift and not to stall,
to take the deep blue-blackest ink and banish doubt,
to write
as I might spread my arms out
over an abyss.

Gabriel Gbadamosi is an Irish Nigerian poet, playwright and critic, as well as the founding editor of WritersMosaic.

Poetry submissions to thursdaypoems@gmail.com.