whatever you say into the wind takes form, for there is power in your tongue, the preacher said ever since, I’ve been waging war with the wind with my tongue the wind has refused to shapeshift o, how I envy the sky how it sheds tears & everyone cheers today I chose to study my anatomy I picked my eyes from the rest of my body if the eyes are windows to the soul, a tear is a soul free from suicide I wonder if I am a breathing cadaver I picked my mouth, a hut with mortified stories I picked my body, a battlefield brimming with death I wish I could be a butterfly, not tangled in a spider web I wish I could be a free bird, not trapped in a cage I wish being a boy is not a euphemism for a toy
Joemario Umana writes from Maiduguri. He’s a SprinNG fellow, a member of The Writers Manger Network and Poetic nest. He has a poetry gazelle published by Konya Shamsrumi titled A Flower Is Not The Only Thing That’s Fragile. His poems are published in journals like Brittle Paper, Strange Horizons, Isele Magazine and elsewhere. He tweets @JoemarioU38615.
When you were born, your body was offered to God – the priest held you in the air before the congregation, before the altar, and there, surrender your life. The man of God said, he saw greatness in your eyes and your mother grew a butterfly and named you Emmanuel. As your days became to stretched, your mother didn’t know she couldn’t live to see her crying baby walk with smiles planted on his face out of secondary school. Or that of his father that was going to be missing for a time long like forever. She would feel sorry to also know that her father’s daughter would grow tire of calling you son and misnamed you, yet you kept your body. The priest didn’t do well, he should’ve told her greatness is a survival story.
Glossary of Things We Inherited
Terms
Operational definition
abomination
this time a man gun did not mistake a man for an animal but, another man offered his daughter to a rich man for a reasonable price, learning slavery from his ancestors.
brokenness
the streets bring back memory of the war – violence, you packed in a corner of the road to see how a boy hauled scissor out of his side to carve the body of another boy into wounds.
catastrophe
you know God’s angry when he steals the sun and send heavy rainfall. once it turned our home to pool & everything floated like the way a brother lost in the sea, was brought to the shore after two days.
darkness
after the civil war, we were found without form & void, darkness grew over the face of this city and we spoke light, till this day, our voices are still struggling for existence.
elegy
is another name given to a country who still knows nothing other than keeping homes of lifelessness in its body like a cemetery. today, i peel this country off my lip and replace it with nothing but watch if our wounds will heal out of time.
frustration
your phone waited for you to make your bed and walked out of the table, tore the window screen and found the street. never to return.
grief
when God gets tire with silence, he answers with grief. he inject it into the veins of our country till a boy couldn’t find his father after the war, a girl raped at 14 became mother & your mother jagged language still translate the anger in widowhood
hope
not everything falling beneath the ground is buried, some are seeds planted to grow into trees. hope is a metaphor for living in a broken country.
Bio
Emmanuel G G Yamba writes from Monrovia, Liberia. He’s a graduate of the University of Liberia and SprinNG Advancement Fellowship. His work has been featured and forthcoming in The Shallow Tales Review, The MUSE, SprinNG, Inkspired, Funminiyi Anthologies, Libretto Magazine, Salamander Ink, African Writer, Kalahari Review, Odd Mag., Rigorous, TVO Tribe, Ibadan Arts, An anthology for Abunic and elsewhere. He’s on IG as yamba86163
