I would not write this,
if not for the voices that turned
my head into a village square,
dancing the elegies of my sister.
the metaphors here,
have melted the ice on my tongue.
and I found my voice reciting
the last collection of my sister;
I’ll paint my neck with color notes
and turn it into a body,
when mother returned,
she would see my remains
hanging
and pour salty waters on them.
I know our neighbor’s children,
will come to ask me why a mouth
full of saliva runs dry?
when its tongue never gets tired of licking itself.
my sister’s spirit would come back
and whisper to them that,
these words would have not been written
if she didn’t swallow the voices telling her
do you know what your father looks like?
he was a good friend to those
broken bottles of wine in the street,
and a regular customer to those
women who sell their cheap skin
inside a dirty wrapper.
she would tell them
how difficult it was for her to know
which name planted her in the womb
of her mother,
and the best way to answer all these voices
is to paint her neck with color notes and turn it into a body.
Yahuza Abdulkadir is a Nigerian writer and poet. He is a member of Hill-top Creative Arts Foundation. His works are published in Terror House Magazine, Kalahari Review and others. When he is not writing he engages in social and humanitarian activities in his community.