hear me out please my home has grown into gunfire
the bullet is going round again on the news my people dangle
between nightmares between mouthfuls of regrets in search
of quiet in another headline a child left home for school and
returned to his parents wiped into nothingness as if by the hand of
God & the community remained quiet like an explosive at rest
on reading the news i misplace my tongue i do not know where
to start mourning this country of ghosts this cemetery three
shadows short to be called a night so i begin from my mother’s
waist tie where she wraps our family ruin into safety
i begin from the news where an entire generation was burnt into ashes
& the ashes burnt into ashes & the ashes into the ashes of burnt things
i begin from my street that has now become a Qibla where the kunfayakun
of bullets manifest i begin with my bare shadow mourning alongside me
i begin from the voices of the Chibok girls in interviews when asked how it
feels to be home again from their accents i can tell the number of times they wish
to break alongside the night i feel the loneliness in their voices
the void wearing their faces like skins the therapy they will not get
i know what it means to be plucked unripe two winters away from
blossoming hear me out please my country has grown into gunfire
earlier today a fight broke between students and some gangsters
and the police a few meters away feigned silence like God
