By Hassan A. Usman There’s no figurative way to say this: I’m heartbroken. It’s sunset again— I arrange my body where there’s a flicker, learning new ways to excite my grief. Light, even light, is damned to darkness. A bird…
By Ayoade Olamide Joy, they say, approaches in the morning, but this one breaking from my skin holds the semblance of a comet & I don’t know when it would hit. This art of liberty forms a laceration on my…
By Dami Ajayi (for Chebet) We let the logistics of saying goodbye overwhelm us, like young lovers. We remain tentative although we meant to be spontaneous. With ethanol & laughter & the canopy of night we feasted on music &…
By Joy Mamudu The first time I saw a rake, I was a child lost in the wonder of the metal fingers that gathered leaves into heaps I could roll in later, my laughter burning like incense to the gods…
By Odukoya Adeniyi By laying on my father’s bed, I have come to memorise the triggers of art. The body so frail, ashes chorus the last laugh. Dreams begin like a painting. In water, they form quakes, captives, canisters and…
By Olumide Manuel boy in a tarmac of bruises, rigid winds with sharp tips washing off his scalp like a cinnabar of fresh amnesia. raids of fright reminiscent of the grime of the bloodflood; the residual of soiled platelets; banks…
By Olowo Qudus Opeyemi where i came from/ still smells of wet hyacinths & rotten mangoes/ that is what—the rain brings out of that place/ & i’m beginning to travel back to memories/ where grief was a mirage/ & grandma’s…
By Amina Akinola i’ve watched leaves change colour / seasons / fading into oblivion / life wander across my eyes / like smoke / into unknown destinations initially / every part of myself had a lingering of yesterday / gushing…
By Sodïq Oyèkànmí —after reading Adedayo Agarau tonight i take a piece of paper & fill it with the names of everything lost to the rumbling river to the earth …
By Samuel A. Adeyemi Still skinny as ever. My hair, shorter, receding more. What I’ve learnt, though— to love myself even in my solitude, to treat the body not as a temple, but as a wound; cleansed, purified. Only a…
