For Her – Ayiyi Joel.
For Her After Gbenga Adeoba (Her Facebook wall—empty of her portrait) For the girl I got to know through facebook For Ruby I met her absence months after she left It’s been two years now. A bird whose unknowing was fluttering Into a family. A home where her love Is the trickles of rain in a desert. Again, I pour myself into the ache of her heart On her Facebook wall. It breaks to me now how people can make your eyes heavy with water And your chest, crackling with flames. And I wish to spool time backwards like disc In the grasp of a dj. To when she never gave In to the call of the noose. To when she never graced her lips with The little bottle with the label of a skull. To when she never desired slitting her wrist For the raw touch & ooze of…
My Father’s Breath in the Eternal Moon of Farewell – Yahuza Usman.
My Father’s Breath in the Eternal Moon of Farewell i, too some-day would lookinto the room where my motherused to tell us the tale of the luminous moonthat seldom refused to shine with red-teary eyes,but sadly, my ears would neither trace her mellifluous tonenor would my eyes catch a glimpse of her mature teeth someday, i would wake up early in the morningwith grief-stricken news that would melt my heart–that the grey-haired man that puts food on our tablehas gone to stay in the world where only the breathless souls go someday, i would ask my tender heart with a sorrowful tone–about the glamorous light i used to behold in the nightevery time i sleep, but an oven would my heart become–melting my tissues without a word of comfort, even for a while someday, i would not be able to swallowthe distance of joy treasured in the box of survival…
Pashing a Roadmap of Gloom – Aderohunmu Abdulrokeeb.
Pashing a Roadmap of Gloom [5:20 am]: I woke up with all my woes written boldly in my heart, I woke up with all the silence of yesteryears reigning in my body. My rosary is a strangled neck aiming to carry its burden with ease. The night before, a girl tried to carry my third leg with her tender arms, it’s the ritual here, for a girl to proffer pleasure to the boy she thought looks seductive, the music in it is played and the pants could only listen to its lyrics It’s hard to control the song, it’s hard, it’s hard, and I won’t survive any humiliation if the lyrics echo into her hands, I submerged my body into the darkness of the night [5:5:30 am]: I’m still left strangling the sticks in my rosary, with repeated litanies making their way into my mouth, mother said life will be…