I carry my homeland 

wherever I go. It shows and scents on my clothes. 

Yesterday at the market, without telling her, a woman 

said to me “ìlú àwọn alfa loti wá (you come from 

the homeland of Mullahs).”

1 My father is an enigma. Growing up, the little I learned about him I gleaned from listening to snippets of conversations between my siblings. Even now, after all these years, he is still a […]

In the wake of dawn, the Muezzin’s voice pierces my sleep. I can feel God’s hands pressing on my chest to awaken me for prayer. Memory becomes reminisce as I wash my body, reminding me […]

Ma is unrehearsed mayhem:                 vendor of uppercut & jawbreaking kicks. attacks with both twins strapped to her back. infamous for pulling off wigs at                                                                                        the market place. she that volatile. though gentle, if a brawl […]

4chan / subreddits to connect the weirdragged-faced, trying to connect the beard fake news! — gave up trying to detect the botsat awkward dinners trying to connect with Pops; or at instameets, trying to connect […]

here i am, in the arms of time,
thinking of caricatures of nothingness.

Search Sweet Country After Kojo Laing  We sleep in body vases. Animal beings in paper palaces Jamestown, Cantonment, Labone… Stars are stuffed animals; The sun brandishes its old teeth. O lost country, dog country, Rivers […]

and it is true, to touch water this consciously
is to be touched by a mother pulsing with the pulse of dreams that sank with paperboats

I am not close to ending, yet, but I listen 

for what speaks to me without voice; violence; 

God

After a week in our house, furious Aunty Coreen left. She’d located a Professor friend who taught at the University to host her. The Professor friend telephoned our house for help finding Uncle, but Daddy spoke to her at length without committing to anything apart from lists of names and places. Even Mama, in the years of being married to Daddy, had never heard these. Finally, speaking in Kiswahili, Daddy told the Professor about Aunty Adelaide, and that he and Mama didn’t want to break his new marriage. He had taken so long to settle, they said