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.
