Boloom Road – Muiz Ọpẹ́yẹmí Àjàyí
We stripped on the long walk. As if in a frenzy, we unbuttoned our school uniforms, undid our shorts zippers, and began pulling them off halfway to the Boloom. We cackled with joy between our teeth, sipped La Casera from fancy bottles, and made jokes we almost believed about the Boloom calling us. The Boloom, […]
Remedy – Olasubomi Cole
You watch as your mother shoves the new child into the midwife’s arms. You keep your face eerily expressionless, as though it is completely normal, as though it is the logical thing to do – to shove your newly birthed child into the weary arms of a midwife. Outside, the torrential rainfall has thinned into […]
Of Home and Other Places We Claim — Adeola Opeyemi
What happens to them if they can’t diagnose me? They look like they are afraid of not just me but something beyond this austere room. They stay a few feet away, a barrier between us, and make promises. But they won’t come closer. How do you hope to inspect the things you can’t touch? I smile and move towards them, my chains jangling and biting into my ankles. They move back hurriedly. I can see it in their eyes; everything unfamiliar is dangerous.
Poems by Benson Eluma
Myth of the Vestal Virgin It is time to set out for the crossroads.The vestal virgin, mother to all their mothers,Has something for them in the mirror —Image of herself nakedBefore the morning of creation,Yes, before the moulding of the gods.Stick ithyphallic in her hand pointing southward,Away from Eagle Square where our elders waitIn robes […]
Two Poems by ‘Femi Pope
We die at birth We die at birthAnd life is a postmortem journey thereafterEvery breath, a new incisionEvery act, a stripping of fascia from muscleMortality is a congenital (dis)order. Childhood is pallor mortis,Innocence ebbs awayBlood leaks as capillaries collapse. Adolescence is raging fireReduced to smouldering ashBy adulthood. The fourth decadeIs for re-evaluating ambitionsThat once scraped […]
Stranger Things Than This — Ope Adedeji
Standing under the bright white light that was a stark contrast to the dark clouds outside, Love felt a wave of dizziness that forced her to hold on to a mannequin and shut her eyes. By the time her eyes had stopped rolling, and she could stand without the mannequin’s help, she felt a rush of calm and declared out loud: “My life is going to change today.”
Factory Baby — Frances Ogamba
The child stops smelling like a child. The perfumed powders and lotions do not deter the sharp burning smell that creeps into my room each time he wails. Then he gives off an intensely musky smell, like the ripe yellow mucus dripping from the nose, or the slime coming off the body of fish.