for bijoux
you’ve heard about flowers that grow in the dirt.
there are flowers with thorns that grow in the bones & some that grow in your aunt’s backyard garden
every morning as you fix your bones & dress for the war on your tongue; to look for the new body advertised on the TV last night
your mother would say,
you’ve learnt how to overcome the fear that’s wrapped around your ankle, you’ve learnt how to sneeze with your eyes open,
& how to say a prayer for the little things that are starting to eat the large things inside you,
there are sicknesses as old as time, there is a tribe as new as the pain your body invented,
and there are rivers that were once here but have now dragged themselves into your eyes
last night you took your sister to the other side of the room and said, this is where i am from
showing her a hospital picture you screenshot in your phone
there are some wars we fight with others and there are some wars we fight alone…
when the night folds itself with the tablecloth & your body gets flooded
with your tears,
what will happen when your body becomes an empty
house where children run around laughing loudly?
there will be someone who will set god down in a dark room and interrogate him about his likeness
or say maybe God has sickle cell like you
Jeremy Karn a 24-year-old male poet from somewhere in Liberia. He was born between 1995 and 1997 but not in 1996. He writes from his room he barely leaves. He has poems published on African Writer, Praxis Magazine, Kalahari Review, Odd Magazine, and elsewhere.