I stood on the third floor lifelessly, weighing down my body like an ant who didn't want to be swallowed by bricks. My toes were the only part of my body that dared to kiss the floor. Still, in my heart, I wished I could grow wings to ensure my safety. My toes didn't stand [...]
A drop of helium into my soul, like a spice. An ingredient for independence, or uplifting, or sadness. Like years becoming stories, folktales, near-lies. Because they're too old to be remembered, or forgotten— The taste of mama's breast milk, the taste of African earth, The taste of pap, the sound of my favorite lullaby)— How [...]
Our history pants hopelessly Under the burden of our complacency Like an old palm-wine tapper with a huge gourd Balanced upon his crooked, creaking back. Our time, tired of regrets Spread around its sodden sands for too long, Has turned a rooster with a penetrating crow– Deafening like the sounds of the trumpets of rapture, [...]
Mother won't bleed again to the breaking song According to the gospel of insanity of man. She says life is in the hands of a madman. She says Sunday is not enough To bless the memories of her son Who she lost in the hands of stray bullets. Mother won't bleed again In that house [...]
The moonlight makes my skin burn. My mother knows this and so does the babalawo scooping blood from a rusty metal bucket and gently pouring it over my head. The blood sizzles as it hits my skin. It is no match for the fire the moonlight dumps on my skin. I am red. I am [...]
My Pen bleeds ink that heals abyssal hearts
'The Yoruba believe in the doctrine of metempsychosis or transmigration of souls; hence they affirm that after some time, deceased parents are born again into the family of the surviving children. It is from this notion that some children are named "Babatunde," i.e., the father comes again…' —The History of the Yorubas by Johnson, Samuel [...]
The sun releases her scorching smiles, And her thundering rays smear abruptly Echoing into the eardrum of the world Reaching from a far fearful forest Unknown to the magic of all fortune seekers. The sound of silent screamers spike Into the deafened ears of the jungle And boom; its planted bomb explodes Piercing in the [...]
Ikem held his breath alongside his brothers in arms. The men he had met, hated, fought against and now stood together to stop tyranny. He felt a certain kinship that couldn’t be explained or better yet, felt by none other than those who did what they did. The sound of the enemy engines and loud [...]
A number of souls are being entertained by your air gulps, frightened shivers, stuttering tunes and hopeful chords. Your brain convinces your throat to purge out troubled words of the last song you heard in church. A bald man with brows that seem to have been eaten by the dead and an ugly scar he [...]
