Even My Kinks are Unreliable
Locs tossed,
gagging on
a red bandana
tethering
part-stripped
partly gasping
partly resigned
my body has learnt
how to ride the waves
and still arrive
right at the border
of even more need.
I go on the internet.
Safia still writes of Khartoum
& her loved ones
Zukiswa and other comrades,
alongside their flotillas
have been abducted
right on the shores of Gaza.
Pants down,
Nigeria, my country dances
around the coffin of its young,
stoking them into a noose.
I go off the internet.
I turn off my phone.
I do the one thing
my hands are capable of
in the moment:
I touch myself again
into a noose.
Iyanuoluwa Adenle is a writer living in Lagos, Nigeria. She is curious about the physical and non-physical spaces we occupy and how we navigate our individual and collective realities with language as a witness. Her practice is nostalgia-driven and research-based, as she is investigating the in-betweenness of the body, the unreliable nature of memory and the politics of place. Her writings have appeared in The Poetry Review, Chestnut Review, Banshee Lit, Peppercoast Lit, Lolwe, Olongo, and elsewhere.
