I see you hurting, shrivel-bone and tired. It’s in your hair, it’s in your walk, your voice. I’m here, my marathon in a few hours, and I can’t leave fast enough. I tell myself we all run in different ways—humour me. I carry your sores on my ears—half-asleep—as you cry into the phone, another brother dead. Two sisters gone in the past three years. Your heart keeps churning, pumping, pumping, pumping, and the matriarch of four generations remains. Alone in a way we’re yet to understand. Alone in a way only time breathes life into.
Rotimi Robert is a Nigerian poet and prose writer. He’s male and 22 years old. His works have appeared in his head, little books he keeps dismissing then looking for, and the note app on his phone. He has a soft spot for subtexts, and contemporary Chinese and Indian poetry. His chapbook Bipolar Sunshine was selected for the Praxis 2019-2020 Poetry Chapbook Series. His ambition is handicapped by laziness, regardless, when the mood hits, he writes about people, identity, family, loss, friendship, oppression, Yeye…