the ocean waves whisper to my naked feet
At nineteen, a man carries me over water and my fear drops me into guilt. I like to tell you that I am young…
& though I have lived so long in darkness, tonight I climb out of the cave to look up at the moonlit sky that sees me first and smiles God knows, happiness and the sky long to see me like villagers yearning for the moon to step out Tonight I smelt my aches, shapeshift …
He brought an honesty to work deemed unskilled and menial. A self-respect that towered over the egos of overlords occupying fancy positions, in a hierarchy of thanklessness. He had to work. As a younger man, he preferred the solitary jobs that kept him away from the world for days and weeks. Sometimes it got …
My brother, held tight to his belief like a limpet holding onto algae, chewing it off a hard rock. So when he joined Boko Haram, we only saw it on the leaf he left us that read: I have left to strive in the path of my Lord. Ya Ilahi, I agree, belief eats at a …
A child’s need to be chased, to hide and be found time and again, is why my father is the ghost stalking my dreams. When I was a child, hunting for where to hide and wait for my friends to seek, I found, inside an abandoned yard with an unfinished building, a hole in the …
