I awake to a news headline
25 people killed in fresh herdsmen attack.
I am not lying when I say
the youths are counting more bodies in the country
than money in their purses.

Yesterday, I prayed
that I shouldn’t be preyed on tomorrow.
My world is transfiguring into a chapel of tombstones.
No one knows who would join
the congregation next.
I pour my tongue into a burning chimney,
so my prayers would rise to Heaven.

Anytime I am set on fire. Like a body blessed with
melanoma, i fear walking under the sun lest another
shadow pulls a gun to my head or
a stray bullet
finds shelter beneath my skin.

When did we get to this point? where a school child
in Kagara or Kurama dissipates into air
& is soon discovered,
a price tag on the head & I am
not even certain that Baba would
return home from the farm today.

 

 

Photo by Muhammadtaha Ibrahim Ma’aji from Pexels