Last year quivered us into barren climate,
voluble longitude broadcast thick situations
across our lungs, we shapeshifted from
fragile maggots to calibrated caterpillars,
thirst for freedom trapped in our throats,
we were conquered by the
longing for wings, we sniffed memories,
hoary dust, woke moments, body clutched to the past,
odds duped by reality.
We stuffed our hearts
into our knees, lowered our bodies, condensed it
with prayers,
brown eggs for an omelette were the only thing
Mama received as our palliative feed,
torn by hunger, ennui consumed our leftovers.
The only thing Mama could do was
starch our bodies with thick hope, this way,
we engaged this plight as malleable variables,
unusual integers, perhaps as numerals
we scaled through & emerged as indestructible odds
with whiffs of sharpened appendages,
something that shuffled us away.
The easiest way to remain
alive here, is to break into a river
& swallow up every grime gripping
your tooth, speak in the dialect only your grief
can comprehend, & pray the sky washes you
of your dilemma with new rain, a baptism of survival.
We bypassed the wave,
the stinking trenches, last year
was a tsunami, there is a name
for the sacrificial yam that betrayed death, grew tendrils
& became a planted yam, enjoying buoyancy,
a river does not swallow what is of water,
fire, too, can’t absorb turgidity without first
welcoming cessation as an
effervescence of death.
NWUGURU CHIDIEBERE SULLIVAN
is an emerging writer from Ebonyi state, Nigeria. He’s a penultimate medical laboratory science student who explores medicine in the day and worships literature at night. His works have appeared or are forthcoming in several literary journals & magazines, both online & print. He was the winner of 2018, FUNAI CREW Literary Contest, and The IS&T Pick of the month Prize. He can be reached out to on Facebook @Nwuguru Chidiebere Sullivan, and on Twitter @wordpottersull1.
