FLOWERS TO AN EARLY SUNSET

FLOWERS TO AN EARLY SUNSET

(Dedicated to Ilerioluwa Imole Oladimeji Aloba—“MOHBAD”—a sparkling 27-year-old Afro music artiste bullied to death in September, 2023, in Nigeria) There is a tunnel in the human mind. You would think their thoughts would at least reach the bottom of that tunnel. But...
Ezekiel

Ezekiel

Flies buzzed around the grave that evening. I gaped over mourners’ drooping shoulders, my sight blurred, looking from one body to the other and meeting dead eyes.  Women pulled hollandaise, dropped banana and cocoyam leaves over the bodies. Yesterday, my kid...
Fèyísará

Fèyísará

I am surrounded with friends who love me, but I still feel trapped by this lonely feeling. The mind is like that person who doesn’t want you, but doesn’t want you to be with others. It wraps you up in a cocoon of worry that you become blinded to the love and care...
Wear it on your head if it doesn’t fit your body

Wear it on your head if it doesn’t fit your body

Illustration by Adejonwo Kizito and Dantala Ali We are children of different clothes but one body. Divided more or less into halves; there are those who dress in silence and move separately with guns; and those who emulate their fabrics with genuine hearts, easily...
The Valley of Memories

The Valley of Memories

To live with another man’s wounds is to wake at midnights with a searing pain and listen to the man breathe and exist. I am going to my uncle, the man who has been dead for seventy years and has inhabited my body for twenty-three odd years. I am visiting his one-time...