by Joseph Hope
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| Gunmen have killed at least 30 people in northwest Nigeria in the latest round of violence in which hundreds have been killed so far this year and thousands more displaced. —The Washington Post, October 18, 2021. Photo: Some members of the Nigerian Armed Forces Sniper Unit. Stefan Heunis/AFP via Getty Images via The Conversation, October 18, 2021 |
What it takes to live here.
Numb. Wait for the news:
unknown gun men killed an
unknown number of people,
go to bed and hope there is
tomorrow, of course there is
always tomorrow
and aways bad news,
a man named Naira
fell from it high horse
and broke more than a neck.
The president said shoot
the protesters, No,
the Army chief did, No,
an unknown fraternity bigger
than the government gave the command,
we don't know who fired
but we know who died.
Pretend. Pretend you're happy
and unhurt, riddled with holes and alive.
Try to live on unpaid
salaries for months
and save enough to buy a house
from unpaid pensions.
Understand to plan your future
on nothing but prayer, a lot of it
that the church overflows and spill
into the street like chemical waste.
Understand ghost walking,
understand the rhythm of bullets,
understand the many ways you could
die gradually until blood looks like red paint,
until bodies piled like groundnut
pyramid appear
as a necessity.
It would take more than
the blood of children drooling from the altar
of terrorism to
inflate your already deflated emotion.
The superpower of being a Nigerian
is that you can make comic of death,
dance in anger, and swallow grief
like your daily vitamin supplement.
Joseph Hope is a student of Usman Danfodio University, Sokoto, Nigeria. He is currently studying applied chemistry. His works are forthcoming or already published in Reckoning Press, Evening Street Press, Zoetic Press, The New Verse News, Praxis Magazine, AfroPoetry, Gemini Spice Magazine, Spillwords, SprinNG, Writers Space Africa, Nthanda Magazine, 5th Chinua Achebe Anthology, Ariel Chart, Best "New" African Poets 2019 Anthology, and more. He's a reader for Reckoning Press. He was a fellow in the 2021 SprinNG Writing Fellowship. He tweets @ItzJoe9 & IG: _hope_joseph