Contributors

We Only Care About The Beautiful Things – Mubarak Said

We Only Care About The Beautiful Things the clock is moving backward, & the sun  is stealing the traces of our smiles.  everything bears the negative meaning   of its name—the smiles we pretend to   be missing, the embrace of the light, and   the dryness of the sky. we only care   about the things with flashy skins.   the wind kept swinging between two   end-points: water & hell. water is blind,   the hell has flares. father said, the thing next  to water is flame. the flame is blind too. yet,  we only care about the beautiful things.   there is a garden on our palms. water is red,   roses are red. everything looks strange from  within. roses are beautiful, and red water is horrible.   & we only care about the beautiful things.   we are servants of what refused to be ours.   we are boys, we are men, & sometimes   we identified as commodities on a market  stalls. the market, a dark room. the stalls,  a thorn bed, massaging the curtain between  our skins and bones. it is all monstrous.  but still, we only care about the beautiful things.  Contributor’s Bio Mubarak Said, TPC XII, SprinNG & SAF Alumni, is the winner of the 2023 Bill Ward Prize For Emerging Writers (Prose) and […]

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IF ALL THE SCARS IN MY HEART WERE LADIES, THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN GROWN ENOUGH TO BE WEARING BRAS – Adamu Yahuza.

IF ALL THE SCARS IN MY HEART WERE LADIES, THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN GROWN ENOUGH TO BE WEARING BRAS After Zainab Kuyizhi The walls of my heart has grown into a bonfire I wear these scars like old habits. once, a girl searched through my heart & ended up not finding flowery sinews or veins,

IF ALL THE SCARS IN MY HEART WERE LADIES, THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN GROWN ENOUGH TO BE WEARING BRAS – Adamu Yahuza. Read More »

No One Wants to Write an Elegy – Ridwan Badamasi.

No One Wants to Write an Elegy The disposition of the gravelike an openmouth.Cut is the stalkthat might have grown fullystraight. We trampledew-wet grasses finely latticed with day-oldspider webs. No onewants to write an elegy.The cruelty of sweet-smellingearth, the wet thump as it splashesoff the shovels. And already there is nothing left to see. As

No One Wants to Write an Elegy – Ridwan Badamasi. Read More »

i redeem their emptiness with food – Ismail Yusuf Olumoh.

i redeem their emptiness with food i. God indoctrinated me a lesson in the afternoon:             solve, b + h – w =?               that is, boy + hunger… – water =? interpretation:             a bridge; underneath, the sleeping boy    unlearned the colour             of his skin     or hometown & slept       winter’s blanket a faucet:

i redeem their emptiness with food – Ismail Yusuf Olumoh. Read More »

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