What I Make of a Massacre Scene.
Art from Europeana on Unsplash.
—in remembrance of the casualties of the Lekki massacre in 2020
On the streets,
I identify dis-
membered torsos
& limbs,
count bullets
that missed their
shots into me
through grief.
I think I died
in one of the barrages,
or did I miss the
ship sailing
towards god?
Or did I survive
the bullet wound?
I drink blood in
dreams & deny
it tastes of
sorrow. In one tale,
the man is given
a pistol in self-
defense. He lodges
the barrel to the
face of the trigger-
happy soldier who
murdered his son.
The difference
is, he can’t
shoot. Mercy is
the name you give
to the hand that can-
not wield a gun.
I love to walk into
nights without my
eyes. This way, I
would not be a
witness to blood &
the moon would not
scorch my eyes with
an open fire. & I would
not see those boys in
purple skins as oxygen
drains from their lungs.
I wouldn’t see bodies
falling like autumn
leaves. & if a bullet
paces towards me, I
wouldn’t see it, too.
If I get hit, it’s ignorance.
I will forgive the cop
who pulled the trigger &
my mother won’t blame
the government either.
But, God, let it be
bearable, the aftermath
of this chaos we carry
on our shoulders
like a responsibility.
Art from Europeana on Unsplash.
My Burden, My God, Or The Nigerian Folklore For The Post-Millennials.
A leech licking helium from
the stars, a colony of fireflies
burning with hydrogen,
a small god squashed into
a bold asterisk, a galaxy of burnt
boys —still burning, the fire
cold and insignificant. The taste
of water is life. As is the taste
of fresh air. Air was a god. &
water was the fleshy form of the
god. So I drank my god until
I quenched the desire to bloom
alongside my grandfather in
the city of flowers & silence.
I bathed in the pool of my god
to cleanse the stench of loss
glued on my skin like keratin.
Because my god is reliable,
I cast my burden into the sea
of my god & watch them
drown like the Titanic. My
burden is, firstly, being black.
& being a boy. & then, being
Nigerian. My burden is having
a mother who leaks sorrow
into the emptiness of her room
until an equilibrium is reached
between her body & its external
environment. My burden is my
father’s one-eyed impairment.
My burden is the trigger-happy
cop, his bad English & his un-
professionalism. My burden is
the president, 72, & pretend-
ing to be as gallant as a brick
wall. My burden is the silence
swelling in my Adam’s apple.
My burden is the protest poem
where another child dies of
starvation. Mother says starvation
is to have your cake & eat it.
My burden is writing, writing,
writing. On my X feed, the
murder of a girl is left unsolved
by the Lagos police, that’s my
burden. In Borno, femicide is
termed honour killing; that’s my
burden. My burden is vast like
the sea of my god, it reaches the
shores. It trespasses into Chad
, Benin and Cameroon, and
Niger and the Atlantic Ocean
of the Gulf of Guinea. & because
the sea of my god could not
drown my burden, instead was
contaminated by it, it evaporated into
the sky. & there, condensed into
the rain —a broken line of limb,
cold as the sea —a distant god.
Art from The New York Public Library on Unsplash.
Post-Transatlantic Slave Trade Epistle.
1 I write to the men who have survived
the colonial flood.
2 Blessed is he whose throat turned
water to worship.
3 He who made a boat out of his limbs
to stay afloat.
4 To him swallowed by whales for
slavery sake, may you sprout from
the water as a pink lily.
5 To the bruised, may your scars
remind us of bloom.
6 To the boys who have become maps—
with no specific identity, (though there
are borders with bad blood that seek
the black of your bodies) dear brother,
may you enter the thresholds that adore
your feet, the lintels that crown your head.
7 To the elders who outlived young boys—
cry, grieve, teach the newborns the
rhythms of the elegy. Because, someday,
they will unite with their brothers in paradise.
8 To the man who ploughed the field
with his teeth in search of maize. Be patient
like that last day of the year. & in your
harvest, remember him who is toothless
& him who has ploughed in vain.
9 To the wounded. Merry. Time is a bird.
10 To the despondent,
faith is the evidence of things not seen.
Be of good cheer. Time is a bird.
& good things, like death, are inevitable.
11 To the boy who craves a dance,
unlearn the silence in your head,
down a bottle or two & drown
yourself in the melody of melodies.
12 To the lonely, your shadow sees you & follows
in the same step. The walls hear you & they echo.
13 To the boys gasping for breath, go to the trees—
it’s God first law of coexistence
14 To those eyes empty of sight, you’re
beautiful. Even moreso because you do not
know the sight of bloodshed— the colour
of the evil you breathe.
15 Finally, brother, be steadfast in hope.
Because, the flood only came to pass.
16 Because the flood only came to pass—
amen.