BBL—Body Borrowed for Likes

They all look alike now—women carved from the same cartoon,hips like overstretched commas,backsides inflated like National Assembly’s budgets. BBL, they chant.Brazilian Body Lottery.A ritual, not for the faint-hearted—or the flat-bottomed. In this temple of silicone saints,the entry fee is your natural self.You trade it for a gourd-shaped gospel,where “natural” is a slur,and “authentic” is a sin. They line up…

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She Said She Was Just Passing

I used to laugh when movies said love can make a woman lose her mind.I called it fiction, flowers, and foolish scripts.But I watched it unfold, real and raw, on my guy’s streetLike a slow-burning drama shot with no director, no pause button. It began with long walks that had no destination.She’d leave her house in the evening—no bag,…

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Chief Iṣẹ́ l’ówó

Drum it low, drummer!Gently! Gently o!For the spirit of Chief Iṣẹ́ l’ówóis pacing again! Call the town crier!Tell the elders!Chief Kanmi the Rich is not resting!His grave is rumbling!His ghost is sweating!The ancestors say he has refused to sit! Ah-ah! Chief!You built five mansions in Lekki,And one in London for “just in case.”Now your son has turned them into…

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Belly-Flyer

(For Chief Barrister Feni Keni KoyundeSleep with anyone and get pregnant) Oh Great Ones!Call your children to the square!Let the drums speakTum! Tum! Tum!I have a story to sing!A tale of a man with wings of wax,who flies wherever the aroma of stew rises! Wait—Have you not seen him?The man of many tongues!Today, he is the crocodile of justice!Tomorrow,…

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THE MAD ONES WALK IN HEELS

Look! They walk the streetsIn wigs of wisdom,In sneakers of sorrow,Clutch bags of calamity,And lips red with rage! They smile sweet—Yes, sweet like honey on a spearhead!But inside?Inside is fire!A furnace of fractured thoughts—Cute but psycho,Fine face, fractured soul! You see her on TikTok,Twisting waist, tweeting wild,Sipping gin like salvation.Ask her what’s the craziest thingshe’s ever done—She laughs like…

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The Tongue of the Madman

I sat at the feast of kings,And saw a goat wearing the crown!The loudest drunkard in the clanNow called “Your Excellency!”His breath stinks of liquor and lies,Yet chiefs bow before him! He who once sold fake fertilizers,Now chairs the Committee on Agriculture!And the woman who forged her school certificateShe now signs off on education budgets!Ha ha ha!When did pigs…

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The Women Between

The man with a dove in his chestwalks softly through the village breezebut in his compound,his wife tears thunder from cotton clouds,cooks insults in the pot of peace,and scolds the mortar for being quiet. He offers laughter,she stirs storms.He plants kindness,she harvests thorns.And the town calls him “weak”as termites eat his roofwhile he prays for rain. But the man…

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Forward’s not always progress

He rose,without the gilded luck of throne-born sons,but with the raw hunger of a man who knewthe iron tang of turned soil.His fingers carved roads from gravel and ghost,watched the land kneel—an old houndlicking its master’s palm.He shouldered mountains,their roots snarling at his feet,and with each cracked nail,he wrote the futurein a languageonly storms could speak. Forward!He moved like…

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The Arsonist’s Lullaby

IIn the house of sighs, she lit the wick—moon-eyed, hush-hymned,cloaked in crêpe of cope(a shroud she stitched herself).A bonfire of silk apologies,kindled by her matchstick sorrow. When the roof spat soot and grief,she danced among ashes—chanting trauma-trauma like tambourine,a dirge of didn’t-mean-to—while the neighbors wept in buckets,their tears slick fuel for her next performance. IISaid she:“I suffer from kaleidopsyche,the…

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Lost Shadows

By Ebhohon Majekodunmi Oseriemen They promised us light—a golden sun in every socket,a thousand pixel moons cupped in our palms.No more shadows, they swore,no more cracks for grief to hide.We clapped. We swiped. We danced.Drunk on the buzz of a futuretoo bright to see. Now—where does a widow’s tear spillwithout a hashtag sipping its salt?Where can a man cradle…

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