Search

In: Anthology

No city to dwell in – Iyanuoluwa Adenle

I do not know who left the doors open //  the world
ushers itself
as the night
into my palms                                  camps in my memories
the eve of my twelfth birthday
I wanted to know
if my hands
would be enough to hold me
someone left this door open and
another has invited the rudeness of their fingers       left them grazing at my thighs/
your fist lost in my throat / 
         my tongue walls [what comes hand in hand with being black and woman?]         in my jaws       
let the eyes   witness no evil          let the body             be the antidote      
let the antidote be         
as i claw at the nightmares in my sleep      my bitten
fingernails burrowing into this body trapped within itself
the eyes bear witness  
as I claw to get the world out. I wake and another black
body has been put apart                            how long do i have to watch as black women become
witnesses to the scars scattered in their bodies


Iyanuoluwa Adenle is a 24-year-old poet and essayist from Nigeria. She makes a conscious attempt to explore the human conditions based on grief, loss, and love in her writing. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Kalahari Review, Africanwriter, Empty Mirror, The Hellebore, Onejacar, Lolwe, Kissing Dynamite, Olongo, and elsewhere.