At the cusp of dawn, the sermon was:
gone is the year of dead dreams & earthing of love & losses.
I’d like to agree but the news keeps breaking:
a bullet hugs a school boy & froze his body.
10 school buses have been hijacked by terrorists.
a mother wanders into a bomb to save her daughter
from dying before adulthood. In all of these,
a handful of flying shrapnel lays my faith to rest.
The story goes: grief didn’t allow the world to be still––
a move that altered the revolution of origin.
Lads, teens, youths & adults: age groups that fell off,
leaving elegies in our mouth. We left them flowers
on their tombs, hopeful of growth,
of a transition from unconsciousness to undeath.
You know I have gone through turbulence to be here
in the manner dust curdles my body to lay claim on me.
Aphthous ulcers: the wounds I had from the live coal
grave times placed in my mouth.
I sing of my dead dreams, still.
I speak of my struggles, a drowning into the night
& reawakening into longing for light.
Survival is not always street matter but I slanged it
the street way. I say: the year showed its rough phases
& I rugged through it, mindful of the life-ending signs.
Elizabeth Imaji Ekawu, a budding writer and artiste is a member of Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation, Abuja. She is the winner of Uzo-Udegbunam Poetry Prize. She has won twice at Hadiza Ibrahim Aliyu Schools Festival, Spoken Word category. Say hello on Instagram @elizabeth.maji