The Children of Plenty Homes
- How do you tell the story
of a boy lost in Lagos?
Say in love; say gay;
crushing the city into crystals
evenly decorated with hate.
Do you begin with phrases like
‘Once upon a time’, ‘In the land of myth’
or do you run into the end?
Maybe the story began with you
screaming at a boy
for tasting another boy’s heart,
maybe it was the day
mathematics was taught in church,
a man and a woman would be one
but a man and a man two.
At the age of squirrels
a boy in love learns to make a home
in the eye of a mob;
that is where legs bleed
as gun shots deafen another boy;
he has become an ant
in the midst of feasting lizards,
what is he to think of this place?
Lagos is a death trap for boys
who hunt in skin of others.
He says he is Olumide
but this place calls him fire; dead man;
meaning he is not welcomed,
he becomes one with the smoke
and you run to greet his skin with water,
only to become a lake of tears
that your kind may drink from
and become quiet as the night.
How do you live again
with the ashes of a lover in streets?
But this is home; a city whose
walls remain higher than a boy’s dream,
maybe your story is a short history
of God, waiting on hearts singing
in darkness.
