Each sequence of creaks is the same. When I was light enough to scamper that sequence would slide through my chest – an adult approaching. My book would plunge to nothing, and only my little clenched hands reassure me of its existence. This evening as I climb to my room, weary, those same creaks sound, […]

You said you hated pink. Up until the age of nine and four months, pink – pretty, pearly, rosy pink – was utterly acceptable. But now you’re nine, nine and four months, and the only colour for you is blue, cool blue, like an ocean in your room. I wait a little, for you to […]

The doors are scissor blades – sever us, give us space. We exhale in sighs, hot frustrated hand driers. Our eyes flash colour, marbles rolling around our sockets. These flickering lids speak louder than we could. We are sinking, quicksand drawing us through floors as we complain about the people bumbling down the stairs. The […]

the heaviest you can find are often biology textbooks. five hundred pages, life science: how seeds nestle in the earth, siblings buried side by side. beneath my thistle-pricked thumb—the spine of a late-june rose, petals milk-soft where they spill out in spirals, unblemished as fresh paper. beneath the nervous tickle of my thumb—the spine of […]

All flickers and All fluctuations stopped With a switch, so the doctor’s fingers shut your tissue eyes And there was death, like there was life Your hands, without a pulse, grew cold Searching for my blood, our momentary grasp was a harmony singing What I’ve now learnt was meant For deaf ears and other senses, […]

God bless you. I guess you are beautiful in your own crazy electric way, carved through the back of Africa, sandy roads kick up their dust in my eyes, whisper dreams formed of drumbeat Yoruba and desert wind. my footprints on this road seem lost to the melodies of wide-eyed children and You sound like […]