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.