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In: Anthology

Every Party is Another Party – Caleb Femi

There is a sub-clause for every yout who enters

a party with a burner tucked in his waist:

under no circumstance is he allowed to dance,

he must stand on the wall & serve

as the wallpaper of the room.

He is afforded a stiff head nod like a broken action figure

but only at intervals when the vibe peaks.

This is the penance he pays for opting out

of the parity of danger that the rest of us commit to,

the acquiescence that it is what it is

because whether it is opps, bills, the weather, boydem,

whether in the sheath of our beds or

in the wilderness of the streets,

something wants to stop the motor of our hearts.

So let him stand there

with his infrared eyes – soothsayer milky –

that see in moon-grey vision,   

us, laughing and sweating and turning our bones to silk.

Mocking ourselves for dodging arrows with blindfolds on

as Wande Coal sings,                                                                                                amorawa o ta ba ri rawa

every party is proof that we are all afflicted

with Peter Pan syndrome,

that we’re all in the same gene pool of joy.

Every party belongs to a lineage of parties.

Let the yout stand there and see us metamorphose

into our parents, uncles and aunties,       

see our Miyakes, crop tops stretch into butter-gold

aso-okes that make our walk suede,

a mint November night,

the dance floor smokey like the jollof being served,

the Fújì band speaking only to our waists –

we are always a talking drum solo away from immortality.

sho ta leno

O fine gaan

Let him see cash money falling

on our heads like a bounty.

if we are the wanted

so be it

Cash money falling

to the ground like a carpet of autumn leaves.

come pree how we patterned

Summer so it never ends

Cash money falling

and the curse placed on the endz lifts.

we’ll bask in this

for tonight at least

Let the yout stand there and see us dancing with open ribcages,

knowing death is peaking in the shadows

at our defiant hearts thumping,

thumping,

thumping.


Caleb Femi is a writer, director, and photographer, and was featured in the Dazed 100 list of the next generation shaping youth culture. Femi’s award-winning debut poetry collection, Poor, was published in 2020 by Penguin Random House, and won the Forward Prize for best first collection in 2021. It was added to AQA’s English Literature GCSE syllabus in the UK in 2022. He has directed TV episodes for HBO, the BBC, and Netflix, as well as commercials, high-fashion films, and runway shows for brands such as Louis Vuitton, TikTok, Bottega Veneta, Dior, Mulberry and NCS. From 2016 to 2018 he was the Young People’s Laureate for London, working with young people on a city, national and global level.