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  • Petrichor

    Petrichor. 

    That’s the word he used—the one he called the scent you said you perceived outside. The scent of rain, soil–the one curling into your nose right now.

    “I can swear,” you began. “Swear?” you remember, he said, interrupting you as always. His head had tilted slightly to the right. 

    You remember how the light bounced off the tiny golden hoop earring in his left ear, how his taupe-coloured eyes twinkled, how his cold fingers traced wet lines on your cheekbones.

    You watched sweat trail down the side of the Cold Stone ice cream paper cup—the one beside the packet of testosterone pills he purchased at the pharmacy before you arrived. Despite leaving the house thirty minutes earlier, you were ten minutes late, thanks to Lagos’s never-ending gridlock. He didn’t mention your lateness, but you saw his eye glance at his watch when you walked in. He could annoy you in a million ways, like how you were a bit pissed that he ordered before you came in.

    But what he wasn’t–what he never was–was tardy. You once joked that if the rapture were a thing, if indeed the blast of a trumpet by the archangel of the homophobic god whose name was also ‘love’ could make people become human magnets- an irony you are yet to understand. He would be amongst the first to be caught up in the clouds, one of the first to arrive at the pearly gates.

    “If the angels are half as pretty as you are, Omalicha Nwa, you bet I would,” he replied.

    You remember how he bit his lip and did that annoying hip swing while locking you in place with his mesmerising gaze. At that moment, you knew he could trade eternity for you. You could wager that, for you, he would catch a grenade, hijack a plane, take a bullet in the brain, or whatever Bruno Mars said in Grenade. And you knew that you could do the same for him.

    But you let the yinmu and “better washing” slide out of your lips. You even accompanied it with an eye roll; playful deflection was your love language. You had yet to master the ability to reciprocate love. Perhaps affection wouldn’t have been strange to you if you had grown up in a household where “I love you” was used as often as “I pray you remain rapturable.”

    You remember the earliest days of your relationship when such action would have attracted a frown and a reprimand. But you both had outgrown that part of your lives. In the last eighteen months you had both shed those old skins of judgments and grown into new ones.

    So, that day, in the matchbox flat on Bode Thomas, Surulere, you smiled so hard your cheeks hurt when he flapped his hand like a big bird as he drifted towards you. There and then, you could tell that the flutters in your belly belonged to a thousand giant monarch butterflies. 

    You wished you had flapped your arms and ran towards him, too. You wish you had succumbed to the prompts of your heart and pretended to be a goofy goose. Instead, you side-stepped him just before he got to you. You wanted him to chase you. 

    If you knew then that time was already ticking, you would have let him hold you for all the minutes you allowed him to chase you around the frayed pink couch. You would not have done small shakara.

    At the Coldstone outlet four days ago, you wanted to tell him to use a spoon like every normal person. The perfectionist in you wanted everything to be perfect. You would have added, “for once, Somto” to get his attention, but the dimple that formed on his right cheek when he smiled distracted you from the faux pas, as always. It was easy for him to sway your emotions and change your mind without effort. And sometimes you wondered if it had anything to do with you loving him more than he loved you. You wish you knew the answer to this or to anything at all. You cannot remember if you knew someone who once said their partner annoys them as much as they amuse them. 

    Or maybe you heard it in one of the Agony Aunty segments of Jola and Feyikemi’s  I Said What I Said podcast. You don’t know which.

    Right now, your head feels like those refuse heaps stacked beside gutters in shop fronts on Thursday sanitation days; your head feels like a mix of mess. 

    To be candid, on some days, you didn’t even bother about his ice cream habits or any of his quirks in public. Why should you? You once dated a girl who drank beer straight from the bottle. An old-time girlfriend preferred slurping her palm wine from the calabash; you’ve had your fair share of weird drinkers and wack lovers. You have kissed a hundred frogs before your prince came along. But Somto was the only person you knew who ate ice cream directly from the cup. Spoons and spades be damned, he would say.

    You don’t know why the memories are tumbling in; why every moment you shared is coming back to you, but right now, you remember the dust, nylon, and paper swirling outside the glass. You remember the ‘E’ missing from the ‘Cold Stone’ inscribed on the glass.

    “Swear about what, my sweet love?” he asked. Your faces were so close you could see the pebble-like smoothness of the mole on his lip. So close in that public space that throbbed with strangers’ laughter, chatter, and patter of feet. So close that you were covered in the haze of caramel, frozen yoghurt, Oreos—and that scent you are wearing now. The cologne he left in your house. The empty bottle that best describes how you feel.

    “That you’re the only one that knows this word in this place,” you answered him. Your index finger–the one with the black chipped nail paint and the matching tattoo of a half heart–traced a halo in the space above your head. You didn’t care then that it was a preposterous claim. 

    In a room with men in nice suits and women in colourful chic office dresses. You didn’t mind that you were in Lagos’s Silicon Valley: Yaba, where your love story began. It didn’t matter how preposterous it was that you thought Somto was the only one who knew the word for the scent of rain. That both of you were in love or even sharing that same space was considered unthinkable by many. Even in 2024.

    Ayobami Adebayo’s “Stay with Me” was what brought you together. So much for a love story. Movies were your thing, so when you picked up the book on that green plastic table crusted with leftover Egusi and porridge beans in the crowded cafeteria. You did what every non-reader would do: you glanced at it casually, like someone inspecting a specimen; you flipped through the pages; ran a finger over the spine and made a comment when you saw the title. The newness of the book and boredom were what attracted you initially; you didn’t see the title till you flipped the book over.

    “So, she didn’t have any title for her book other than Sam Smith’s song?”

    “And who said ‘Stay With Me’ was exclusive to Sam Smith? The voice that answered you made you jerk your head upwards. Something about the voice made you look twice at the person. Beneath the hoodie and behind the dark Ray Bans, you could tell that whoever they were, they were not like everyone. They would never be like everyone. That’s how you met. It didn’t surprise you when he told you of his pills and potion on your first date two days later.

    “Potion?” you curled an eyebrow at him. “I’ve known that I was different since I was a child. He shrugged, and you witnessed him biting into ice cream. You watched him eating ice cream from a bowl for the first time. You had your deal breakers, and such a quirk as his was one of them, but as you watched him, you drew a faint line over it. That would be the first of many compromises.

    “You know if you didn’t tell me that you were…” You drew spirals in the air because the word was still too heavy to pronounce. You were still in a daze, wrapped in a cloud of surprise and infatuation. You were not a stranger to queer relationships. You have always found the minds and bodies of women more appealing than men’s. At first, you thought it was a form of rebellion against your spooky evangelist parents. Eventually, you realised that it was what it was—you were a girl who loved girls more.

    “A trans man… A guy, man?” he replied in his raspy voice, a result of smoking two packets of Benson Switch daily. Your body tensed, and the Oreo in your mouth tasted like chalk. Your eyebrows must have shot into your hair when you reacted. He waved your fears away with a flick of his head. That was when you fell in love completely with him. A few days later, while your belongings were still folded in your big Echolac box pushed against the wall of your room, you kissed for the first time. 

    Stay with Me was the first book you completed without being forced or cajoled. Nikki May’s Wahala was the next. You became a reader after that day. He became a podcast listener afterwards. You both agreed that it was a fair trade.

    ***

    Pain shoots up your palm as the gravel in the black soil bunched in your hands pushes against your skin. But that pain is nothing compared to the one in your chest. It is a drop of water to the ocean, a speck of dust to the sand in the Sahara Desert. If you had known that the ice cream date was your last day together, you would have stayed there forever. Fused to that uncomfortable, gaudy wooden chair, stuck on it like an old bubble gum.

    Your eyes are pressed shut. So tight it feels as though the bones of your eye sockets are touching. A sound that can pass for a muffled groan and stifled moan ricochets in your head and chest. You want to let the light in, but to let in the light, you will also be letting in the dark. If you do, you will see the tombstone and the lies—‘beloved daughter’ etched in neat block letters.

    If you open your eyes, you will see the footprints of the ones who never accepted him on the freshly dug soil. The ones he shared nothing with but a last name. The ones who had hurriedly dumped ‘the family’s embarrassment’ into a final resting place. Their excuse—according to the blog—according to religious rites.

    Somto was no daughter even before he began taking the testosterone pills. Neither was he loved. You had screamed this when you first saw the concrete tombstone. You pounded your rage into the dark earth. As though you wanted to dig your way to him.

    Until you heard the cough. It belonged to the guard who had let you in. It and the smell of his sweat-stained body in the worn faded overalls. Together they pulled you back from that brink. Even if you wanted to go on, you couldn’t. The way the guard glared at you made you realise he didn’t believe your story about being a relative who arrived late for the internment. You knew he would have called to confirm if he had Somto’s parents’ contact..

    The way he snatched the one thousand naira note from you when you came in showed that he was tired of the throng of visitors for the day, but he would not turn down your gift. Or any other. 

    When you turned to face him, you had to swallow your grief.

    If Somto were here, he would tell you that the guard was more of a receiver than a giver. Straight people! He would say. That’s how he sometimes saw the world: Straight. Queer. Good. Bad. But you understood because sometimes trauma can affect one’s worldview. The people he always called bad never disappointed. The good ones, too. He knew so much about the human condition that you had begun to think it was a gift because only gifts are that perfect.

    How come the gift failed? Why didn’t he know that the stranger on Tinder was a killer?

    It was a question you had asked yourself a hundred times. Even if you knew that there would be no answer. Not even a lie masked as one.

    Behind your lids, a shadow settles, and a blanket of cold air settles on your skin. The former, you would have been scared to be alone in this place with crumbling tombstones, gleaming granite, and Gone-Too-Soon’s. This place with gnarled tree trunks and wilting flowers.

    This vast expanse of land with its ominous mounds and the smell of decay. But you don’t feel anything. You’re not different from the residents of this place—people who once lived, people who no longer feel.

    So, you press your eyelids tighter as the gravel burrows deeper into your palm. As your knees sink deeper into the soil. The iron fist tightens around your heart and throat. Your chest heaves as you drag in the glue formed in your lungs. You have asked yourself if the tightness in your chest would have been lighter. You want to know if you would have felt better. If the memories of the day you mentioned those words to him did not constantly dart around like bats chased from a tree.

    “Let’s see other people … if that will make you happy,” you had said, even if you knew you couldn’t see anyone else. You wouldn’t. You would rather be a hermit, a worm under a rock, than be with another. But you said it. And meant it. Because love for you has always been what Oprah once said: it is being your best when the other is being their worst. And that was the best thing you could think of after he confessed to the affair. The best was what you always wanted for him.

    You would see the news feature on your phone if you open your eyes. ‘Transman Stabbed to Death.’ 

    Over two decades of his wondrous existence is summarised in four words; his eventful life is limited to one sentence. Even though you had spent hours replying to every vile comment online, telling people to fuck off and directing the keyboard warriors to their choice places in hell. You still can’t believe that it has happened. You want the unreturned phone calls to be another of his pranks. Your ears are pricked for the beep announcing an incoming text; notifying you that he is back; that this was all a bad dream. But you only hear the dull thud of rainwater on the soil. And that smell: Petrichor.

    OBADITAN OLUWAKOREDE (OBA.T.K) is an independent writer whose childhood memories consist of sitting beside his father’s beaten box, devouring almost every book in the African Writers Series.  In those nascent moments, he discovered the power of stories to grip and groom. But it wasn’t until his twenties, after meeting his mentor, that he discovered how to wield and weave stories. His writing is vivid and vibrant, exploring stories never told or amplifying the ones quietly told. He lives in Space, but he can be found in Lagos, Nigeria. He can be reached on 08026893106 and on Twitter(X) @KingofKontent. 

  • Signs – Nozhan Resalati

    The fireflies shine in the pitch darkness.
    Unique flashing pattern to find a mate!
    Dazzling, alluring, sparkling, mysterious,
    More than a flickering light for a date!
    Isn’t that a sign of appreciation?

    Waking up in the morning,
    Drinking a cup of tea by the window.
    Watching the sunrise through the rain,
    Sunlight kisses a rain droplet.
    Rainbow colors. Like your dreams.
    Isn’t that a sign of imagination?

    The baby looks at its reflection
    In the mirror and laughs. For the first time.
    Luster of eyes, wavy hair, radiant smile.
    Breathing, fogging, rubbing, crying!
    Isn’t that a sign of curiosity?

    You’re lying in bed, in puppy pose,
    Arched back! It’s driving me mad.
    Igniting my flame, killing me again,
    With your hot lips on my skin.
    Isn’t that a sign of passion?

    It’s been thirty years since
    Like a journey through time!
    Although you’ve lost your memory.
    But I know that you are mine!
    And you’ll always be my cherished.
    Isn’t that a sign of faithfulness?

    Author’s Bio

    Nozhan Resalati is a writer and an ESL teacher based in Iran. He writes short stories, flash fiction, nonfiction, and plays. He is in love with words and passionate about literature and cinema. His works are forthcoming in Bending Genres and Bull. You can find him on X @nozhanresalati and Instagram @English_journey86

    Featured Image Credit: CreativeNK

  • The Blue Bird Left No Joy on X – Agboola Tariq A.

    in a video,
    i watch how chaos chases a boy from home.
    on the runway,
    a rifle points him towards heaven’s gate
    & a bullet catches up with him.
    like a pinball arcade,
    a boy is fired into strange horizons
    & the only way home is a road that leads nowhere.
    in a country not far from here,
    blood has washed humanity off its borders.
    bones are mistaken for bricks,
    pandemonium sways like pendulum,
    rockets swinging from both sides,
    & there, a boy stuck at the center of chaos,
    where the only thing that brings light is fire.
    he watches how fire eats up his home
    & doesn’t spare his family.
    tears flowing into storm,
    but it isn’t enough to kill the fire.
    in another video,
    a girl is badly hurt.
    her voice
    collapsing like her father,
    her home, her country.
    her body, buried under burning clouds,
    becomes a log of hope.
    & the birds,
    have taken all that’s left of it.           

    Image Credit: Starboyscotty

    Author’s Bio

    Agboola Tariq A., Swan II, is an unfolding poet from Western Nigeria & an undergraduate student of law at the University of Ibadan. He explores in his writing, self / identity & spaces he occupies. Some of his works are forthcoming/in Brittle Paper, Eunoia Review, Olumo Review, IceFloe Press, The Hellebore Press, Variety Pack, Fiery Scribe Review, The Poetry Journal & elsewhere.  He tweets: @Agboola_Tariq_A

  • Famished – Ikechukwu Henry

    Life’s bitterness persists, an unrelenting stream of woes akin to a newborn’s initial grasp on a mother’s breast – feeble and uncomprehending. The weight of its despair becomes truly apparent only when you venture into the once bustling Ụmụdi market, tasked with getting the cooking ingredients carefully whispered into your ears by your mother. “Buy a  packet of Maggi seasoning, three bulbs of onions, a bounty of catfish, and the modest elegance of periwinkles,” her words lingered, albeit with a painful residue as her hands relinquished their grasp. 

    In your community, the specters of destitution and famine have taken residence, perched like a vulture upon a camwood tree. The community now embraces these grim companions with a reluctant cordiality. The once-vibrant Ụmụdi market, a hub of bustling commerce, has faded into a shadow of its former self. It evades description, for fear that articulating its decline would magnify its lamentable state.

    You navigate the labyrinthine market, sidestepping puddles left by last night’s rain, the same rain that had serenaded your sleep beneath the haven of your bed covers. The pre-dawn hush was heavy, laden with the scent of moistened earth, as the moon retreated, its light borrowed from the sun.

    “Mind where you dey go! If my wares fall, you’ll pay,” a vendor chides, rousing you from your reverie. 

    “Sorry, sorry.” Apologies fly from your lips as you survey the nearly deserted market.

    Your journey leads you to the onion lane, a sight you’ve grown accustomed to, yet this time only two sellers grace your vision—your customer excluded. Undeterred, you approach a Hausa vendor, perched upon a large mat adorned with an assortment of onions.

    “How much for this?” you gesture toward a cluster of four modest bulbs of onion, their dimensions scarcely surpassing those of limes. The vendor arches an eyebrow, his gaze darting across his array of onions as if the one you’ve indicated eludes his sight. A memory surfaces—your younger brother, Chidiebere, often played this same game when tasked with fetching specific ingredients for your mother’s culinary creations. His eyes would dance above the exact spot she pointed at, a charade that brought amusement to you and vexation to her. He would linger there for so long and your mom had to check whether he was subtracting the meat she intended to use to cook. 

    “Ebere, What’s holding you?” she would ask, her hands posed akimbo.

    “Mum, I can’t see the onions you said I should bring,” he would whine and your mom had to muffle her chuckle, staring at the onions that lay right between them.

    “Look at it here before I beat the hell out of you.” she would point but Ebere’s eyes would be wriggling above where your mother’s hand darted until she squatted his head to the exact spot the onions lay. 

    Much like Chidiebere, the vendor forces your hand: you squat, pointing once more to the elusive bulbs, mirroring your brother’s antics.

    “Ah, that one is five hundred nairas,” he finally concedes.

    You reel back, as if his words physically push you. Five hundred what, for these diminutive onions? “Isn’t it two hundred naira?” you attempt to negotiate, only to be met with a toothy grin, tarnished by the hue of tobacco-stained teeth—a mirror of the woman at the funeral, her annoyance concealing her smile.

    Money slips through hands like water through a sieve, a realization you’ve witnessed before. At the  burial, you elbowed your way to the front of the line for refreshments, your urgency akin to others jostling for their share. Fingers brushed against food, others’ as well as yours, and the sensation of salvation mingled with the fervor. When your turn arrived, the distributor bypassed you for a scrawny boy clutching his portion as if it were a lifeline. The boy’s hungry eyes and lips devoured the rice, drenched in red oil, his feeble frame a testament to the cruel sting of scarcity.

    You waited but she kept testing your patience as she served others without acknowledging you anymore.  “Aunty I dey wait na,” you reminded. 

    She bared her teeth. “ No be people I dey serve? You too big for this thing oh.” You clenched your fist, your ego crushed. So you left the burial ceremony without informing your mother of your departure. Muttering how biased she was. 

    “If you no want buy, abeg leave my shop. Na money we dey find for this country,” the hausa man reminds you, swatting off flies. You shake your head, fishing out one thousand naira notes from your pocket and handle it to him. He grabs it and lifts it higher as if it’s a telescope, a fake note.

    “I hope to say this money no be canta?” he says and tosses it into his bag.

    “Oga, you go give me jara oh. Five hundred naira no be beans.” you jokingly say as he hauls one more into it and stretches the tied onions to you. You take your change and trudge off. You hope the money your mother gave you would sustain all the things she needs for her cooking. Life no balance sha, you think.

    *****

    Hours earlier, before your mother dispatched you to the market.

    You were returning from the football field, when a piercing scream reverberated from your home. Instinct urged you to intervene, but familiarity bred a kind of apathy towards the tumultuous symphony within your household. Your father’s once-commanding voice berated, “You must be mad, Chinelo!”

    Does a drunkard discern the boundary between reality and his intoxicated musings? “Why haven’t you cooked since four hours ago?”

    Approaching the window, you observed your father’s wrath descending upon your mother, her arms protecting her face from the storm of his blows. His arms, vessels of inebriated strength, struck her with an unholy fury. It was a scene familiar to you, as regular as the rhythm of your heartbeat.

    In the corner, your younger brother sobbed, a witness to the macabre theatre of domestic discord. Your father, Amaobi, wielded his anger like a weapon, unleashing its venom on the most inconsequential provocations. His words stumbled out, hindered by the stammer that had long held him captive.

    He glared menacingly at her as she whimpered on the floor and then, he stormed off to his room, the echo of his rage trailing in his wake. He had always been a tempest on the precipice of eruption, his ire triggered by trifles. You watched your mother pick herself up from the floor and shuffle to the kitchen, her limbs carrying her weight with an air of resignation. Your brother followed, tears painting his face. But why? You had asked no one in particular severally. Had they spent a happy time together? In a gladsome ecstasy? 

    Why was she musing all this beating alone, spending her days sobbing in a pathetic depression? You pondered the reasons behind the torment your mother silently endured. What brought them to this point? Were there once moments of joy, now buried beneath the weight of resentment? Why did she bear the brunt of his aggression, spending her days imprisoned in this cycle of melancholy?

    Hours later, after your father had departed to engage in his vices, your mother received a call that elicited an ear-piercing scream. The phone call was met with a response that seemed to exude elation, an emotion incongruent with the news she had received. Her body language exuded an almost giddy anticipation as she wiped tears from her eyes, as though she had been praying for this very moment. 

    “Ọ bụ gịnị? What it’s?”

    Your mother sprawled on the floor. “A hit-and-run car ran over your father. He’s dead. ” Her eyes beamed with sunlit happiness, momentary giggling gliding off her lips as she dusted her dress and went inside. You realized in those eyes of hers shone a hunger for normality, for regalement, for comfort and succour. Her body longed for freedom from this den called marriage.

    Unbeknownst to you, her hunger for freedom must not be limited to emotional emancipation alone. Aside from that, there was hunger for survival.

  • Two Poems by Emmanuel Yamba

    Greatness is a Survival Story

    When you were born, your body was offered to God –
    the priest held you in the air before the congregation,
    before the altar, and there, surrender your life. The man
    of God said, he saw greatness in your eyes and your
    mother grew a butterfly and named you Emmanuel. As your
    days became to stretched, your mother didn’t know she couldn’t
    live to see her crying baby walk with smiles planted on
    his face out of secondary school. Or that of his father that
    was going to be missing for a time long like forever. She would
    feel sorry to also know that her father’s daughter would grow tire
    of calling you son and misnamed you, yet you kept your body. The
    priest didn’t do well, he should’ve told her greatness is a survival story.

    Glossary of Things We Inherited 

    TermsOperational definition 
    abomination this time a man gun did not mistake a man for an animal but, another man offered his daughter to a rich man for a reasonable price, learning slavery from his ancestors.
    brokennessthe streets bring back memory of the war – violence, you packed in a corner of the road to see how a boy hauled scissor out of his side to carve the body of another boy into wounds.
    catastropheyou know God’s angry when he steals the sun and send heavy rainfall. once it turned our home to pool & everything floated like the way a brother lost in the sea, was brought to the shore after two days.
    darknessafter the civil war, we were found without form & void, darkness grew over the face of this city and we spoke light, till this day, our voices are still struggling for existence.
    elegyis another name given to a country who still knows nothing other than keeping homes of lifelessness in its body like a cemetery. today, i peel this country off my lip and replace it with nothing but watch if our wounds will heal out of time.
    frustrationyour phone waited for you to make your bed and walked out of the table, tore the window screen and found the street. never to return.
    griefwhen God gets tire with silence, he answers with grief. he inject it into the veins of our country till a boy couldn’t find his father after the war, a girl raped at 14 became mother & your mother jagged language still translate the anger in widowhood
    hopenot everything falling beneath the ground is buried, some are seeds planted to grow into trees. hope is a metaphor for living in a broken country.

    Bio

    Emmanuel G G Yamba writes from Monrovia, Liberia. He’s a graduate of the University of Liberia and SprinNG Advancement Fellowship. His work has been featured and forthcoming in The Shallow Tales Review, The MUSE, SprinNG, Inkspired, Funminiyi Anthologies, Libretto Magazine, Salamander Ink, African Writer, Kalahari Review, Odd Mag., Rigorous, TVO Tribe, Ibadan Arts, An anthology for Abunic and elsewhere. He’s on IG as yamba86163

  • 4 Poems by Chinemerem Prince Nwankwo

    Portrait Of Catch and Quest

    —this poem breathes:        precision with[out] end. 
    searching for reason . man & the finesse of dredging.
    the River:   trawl & trawlboat. portrait of catch & quest.
    find the depth —naked rostrum of plunging. catch —
    artefacts of longing & becoming. tell the River, grace of 
    shores. every bound:   the lingo burning to know, bosom
    shape of history lingering. paddle & carve fingers in the
    waters: time & memories. Isn’t it sprint of souls winding 
    in the canvas of time? or the largesse of a poem evolving?
    man —pustule of perfection angling in the et cetera of 
    being. say, a creel of self spawning in the glimpse of dawn.

    I, Decimated Self

    elegy:           she appears, 
      breaks the dead &
    rocking in         sawdust. 
            fold the sanity —
    breaks them. piece & 
    pieces apart. —goads of
    flesh prodding in grief. 
    deserted. —everything 
    at hedge of beholding. &
    you:         driveling in the
    demijohn of self. anesthesia,
        soul off the hook &
    ballast. once wore God in 
    blotched melanin. & your
    heart grappled the pain &
        it pageant away. matted 
    & tuft of a kinky spirit —
    you & the guts of no glory.

    microcosm as a body of death

    [for souls throng to the weight of life. & for a poem gazing

                                          the body in fighting arsenals]

    splinters of inner voices: 

    —he hangs a gaffled breath. holds the grapnels 
    of grief in no salvation. say his flesh ripples of  vile 
    blood. & light of his becoming alters in darkness.  never
    yielding his slouching body a miracle. why is he    an 
    anatomy of a suicidal blood? & his soul a   pendu-
    lum swung from sanity? the grisly scenes in his head
    & the daily ruffled notes soaked of solitude craves  
    an escape, the tethering symphony of goodbye. if 
    man is an owl, he’ll hoot into night loom. he’ll own  
    his soul in crucifixion. & won’t he anguish in drool gasp 
    of venom & gall? again, when life happens:  flood as
    of Noah’s, absorbs his bawls of fragility. & he sketches 
    as an apparition of things in nameless bodies. in 
    celestial pedigrees. those tiny echoes raising a fiery blast, 
    make ashes of his   protruding force to be & to
    become. his head curricles the dream of sepulchres. 
    suicidal ideation akin to him as flesh skinned to bone.       
    nay, he’s a man. yes, he isn’t a deep water. bet       his 
    body bares no oasis but the residue of a living desert. 
    pray him a good spirit ‘cause it’s no easy feat to look the 
    river without drowning. without transiting to no    return.

    nostalgia

    of a poem delicate & svelte. of things shaped in the knobs of memory. how we become & became a roadmap of a never ending you & I. perhaps it’s often said [in a soulful lingo] love is sweet with the right person. the right sacred bosom & hearty alley. the sun & moon dazzled. they always gaped at the artistry of our naked desires. say it’s a heaven’s gaze upon two ravishing mortals. I remember. yet if I do, they say it is a love poem. say it’s the art of escaping the universe. & morphing into your same shadows. bet love is spiritual. deciphered by the mouth of two eyes. two flames flickering at the sight of a single spark. you & I against the storm. against roving waters with familial siege. crystal //& pellucid is the heartbeat of a two-to-tango. maybe a poet is a love poem hidden in many couplets. one day a lover will return more than roses but an empty heart to threshold the finery of reminisces.

    Chinemerem Prince Nwankwo, SWAN IV, is currently a final year student of the Department of History and International Studies, University of Uyo, Nigeria. He is the Poetry Editor, The Cloudscent Journal and an Assistant Poetry Editor, Arkore Arts. He tweets @ CP Nwankwo.

  • Recollections II, Dawn, and Falling by Ayiyi Joel

    Recollections II

    For a friend. For Kafaya.

    Aging is quite cruel.
    & grief is a small room, a shoe, a set of milk teeth
    You never outgrow, it never falls off
    As memory never fails you
    As language does to a body empty of god,
    The way chattering and your high pitched voice left you.
    I don’t know how it works or why I’m fashioned that way,
    But I’ve come to realize that a wound reopened
    Stings me more— two shot in the same spot.
    & what breaks open a scar if not remembrance? 
    A new bleeding taking space & shape.
    It is Friday & I picture you still stuck beneath
    That bus, caught under that danfo till it became
    Unbearable for you. Till you could hold it no longer
    And let out the last whimper in the hospital
    Just adjacent the school that same Friday
    When you had gone out for the Jimoh prayer.
    No one saw all of this coming and no one knew you were leaving.
    Some of us saw all of it and some heard.
    We thought you’d return to us but, like the bird
    Noah sent the last time from the ark, you never did.
    It’s nine years now, after primary six, the adhan calling
    To prayer and I still find you bleeding. Salaam to all my dead.

    Dawn

    For Toheeb and others

    This time, we’d begin with laughter filling out mouth
    The way light floods a room when NEPA do not flop.
    I mean we’d be bright as the unravelling of leaves
    On a tree once bare of its glory.
    The day will go on as it should, no one
    Would drown in the pool of anxiety about what route
    The next meal would take to his table
    & night too would come calling as the beacon
    For a good rest— saviour of a weary body,
    Not a threshold into burning weeds and offering throats
    To the burns of liquor. Maybe the days
    Would be gentle on us like breeze on skin.
    & life will be something soft like the insides 
    Of white Agege bread on our tired palms.
    & our stories would take another turn towards dawn.

    Falling

    Burning out steadily, like a candle with a lit head
    The poem begins with my suffering. I should be 
    Happy. I think I should be. Not this broken.
    Not this sad with a glow, dimming.
    Addiction is to the body what fire is to wax.
    & I am searching for balance in the wrong places/things.
    Talking about what you love the most can also hurt you,
    The way a fish won’t believe what water could do
    It’s tender skin when heated to a boiling. 
    I mean, I am falling apart. 
    I am dying in the hands of what I love the most— love
    & addiction. I think I am soaring too far. The pills keep me high.
    The fall is imminent. I know this
    In the way mourning trails a loss
    You don’t know, love
    How much this laughter and smiles camouglages.
    One pill to silence the voices up there.
    To shut the demons out
    One shot to drown paranoia in waters.
    Two shot to unremember the ache.
    & half a bottle to not feel. To tuck them feelings away.

    Ayiyi Joel, TPC XVI is a young budding poet from Edo state in Nigeria.

  • For Beulah – Psalmuel Benjamin

    Maybe it was symbolic that I had 
    Mourned you before you morphed 
    Out of your tender flesh. I slept in 
    Black clothes. You aborted my sleep
    With cries. I roamed around the room
    With clenched fist against pain but 
    ‘Twould be madness to punch the 
    Wind. Your mother had this darkness
    In her eyes. Her shoulder was heavy.
    Motherhood stretched her breasts 
    And Grandma’s back bore your body.
    I knew the demons were present but
    I didn’t know they came with the 
    Grim reaper. I’d have prayed in 
    tongues through the rugged night 
    And teased God to pretend that you
    Were another Hezekiah and Grandma’s
    Back was the wall you faced with 
    tears of supplication for another full
    Day to breathe and laugh and eat 
    Biscuits and tell Mommy again “My
    Mummy, I woke up” 
    I hope you remember that I poured
    Prayers into your forehead through 
    My palms, that night, before returning
    To bed. That’s our last contact before
    News got to me that you were on 
    Your way up, all ready. To and fro the 
    Medicine house, we missed the 
    Emergency flight of troubled mothers
    And back home, ’twas the debris of 
    Your being on grandpa’s bed. I once
    Cursed death for taking a random 
    Kid at Grandpa’s accident. Today, 
    Again, I curse death for breaking this
    Home like a robber and choosing 
    Your body as a window to burgle 
    Out joy. Sorrow is the simple song
    when  a soul rolls out and the body 
    Becomes a dead log. I believed that
    Dead bodies could be Adam-ed again
    Sustained with explanation that Gene
    Mutation and life expectancy would 
    Only mess you up for eternal beauty.
    Hear, my baby, your uncle is lame
    And he can’t defy this art of disappearance. 
    Your picture is the background of the
    Keyboard I wrote this poem with. 
    And like stale morcha, I can still 
    Smell the whif of your abandoned skin,
    Brush hair with bonds and white 
    Round neck you vomitted on — sparing
    The blue love design on the chest.
    We’re still preaching to your mom
    And fumbling for accurate words 
    To lessen the pain from the pinch 
    Of your death, I mean your departure,
    I mean your holiday, I mean your 
    Sweet stay in God’s safest palms
    Where mortality cannot reach.

    Psalmuel Benjamin is a writer and poet from Nigeria. He’s got poems and other writings published and forthcoming on digital magazines and prints. Facebook: psalmuel Benjamin oluwasheun, Insta: spokespsalmuel 

  • The Night Turns to Day – Anita Okoeko

    In trembling and fear, 
    My sober soul like a sheep,
    Through the dark, nothing in sight can spare,
    My thoughts like a cargo is shipped, 
    The obstacles on the way ever ready to clear,
    Again my thoughts shipped, wheeled and spilled,
    Down through the depth of my spirit,
    That awaits underneath aspiens, 
    Every sound of the dark in this forest,
    Does nothing but reads a meaning to.
    In sleep, I feel the cruelty that abounds in the jungle,
    I awake to the reality of how hard hard it is to juggle,
    Juggle through the ups and downs in the forest, 
    But in a weak spirit thinks the end would fumble.

    Yes, my sober soul,
    The obstacles on the way, longed to clear.
    But what is of a soul that aspires so much if the spirit is weak?
    What is of a soul that expects much if the dark ceases to flee?
    I’ve had expectations in life that should fetch me happiness,
    But bitterness each day, the tongue of my soul tastes,
    I have thrived by all means to see what becomes of the strength,
    Might and power the dark holds in the end,
    But I’m made a fish of myself by it’s arrogance.
    A fish without fins to swim, 
    Meant to drown in the rivers of suffering, pain and shame!
    No longer can my spirit take this, for weakness and defeat it has accepted.

    My soul rises in search of the golden waters even in the dark,
    And finally, the hope of a new dawn is here.
    The scourges and tastes of bitterness is quenched,
    Quenched by the sweet and delicious taste of strength, 
    Reaffirmation, consciousness and prowess,
    My soul is determined to see what becomes of the dark,
    Patience and endurance patting it on the shoulders, 
    Nodding their heads in affirmation,
    Affirmation and confirmation that the game would soon be mine.
    Like wheels clogged, slowly, the dark begins to fade,
    The awful and wearisome sounds often made, 
    Begin to sail away,
    And then the sounds that bring hope, 
    A bright future, the evidences
    Of what my expectations in life should be, 
    All of these I see in limelight,
    My weak spirit in a bid to survive has awoken,
    Awoken and seen the result that the end of the dark has brought,
    True to my expectations,
    The Night has been turned to Day!

  • 12 Caroling for a Dead Lover – Ejiro Edwards

    Dear lover,

    Now that the earth has opened up her bowel to have you for dinner,
    I expect your haunting ,

    Tell me what to do with your bones ?
    Should they rise up and walk again 
    Tell me, Are you afraid of the dark?

    Do you alternate & walk backwards searching for the light?, 
    your two hands, ready to block the fist of the devil from mapping your face like you did mine?,

    Should I wear your teeth as confetti? 
    Should I borrow your navel for a Belt? 

    Your belt swift as lightning, always too fast, too in a hurry to leave it’s position to strike
    Usain Bolt, is that you?

    Beg you permission please, let me use your scrotum for a bar, 
    you were always beating the life out of me, 

    Excuse me, 
    I hear four pipers piping on my losses,
    Four children lost from your fist, 
    Bruce Lee, is that you?

    five bruises capping on my knees 
    sixth eyes grazing through thick darkness, 
    Seven summers mourning our daughters
    Eight maids are milking from my sadness
    Nine bartenders attending my drinking 
    Ten paid mourners mourning on your funeral 
    Eleven, my heart is rejoicing,
    Twelve, I will come caroling at your funeral.

    Ejiro Elizabeth Edward is a passionate lover of the arts. She is the convener of Benin Arts and Book Festival; A literary event that aims to promote the arts within Benin City, Nigeria. She is also the winner of several awards across the literary field. She is the editor of Malimbe Magazine; an Inflight magazine that covers local airlines within Nigeria. She also works for Ouida Publishing Firm. She is the recipient of the Pearl Hogrefe Fellowship Award and is pursing a Master’s program at Iowa state university. She has an infinite desire to impact lives through the Art.