in which a home is a tv for unrecognizable things by Saheed Sunday (Nigeria, 19)

​​sometimes, we marvel at how fast we can run 
 
but not get anywhere; how well we become a
period that puts a stop to nothing. wind-legged, 
time vaults, we watch the gulls peck a name into
 
our bare chests. mother said this is the story of
 
how a home rejects anything with boobs in flying
colors: my sister knew instantly that she was not
home yet. what home wears his daughter sebum

​like a rose? dead, undead. the fatherland soda
 
tastes less of you. acidic, sour, the smokes that 
made this story up put up a barrier on its flames,
and we watch everything that isn’t fiction crack 
 
in ruins; watched every little detail that makes 
 
the girl that birthed me a woman limp, wounded.
the old man behind the hut said some fractured
arrowhead has found a lodge in the space meant
 
for her kind. battered eyelids. punctured finger
 
nails. blackened lips. call 911, a woman is getting
herself around a sharp mist again, and nobody cares.





Saheed Sunday, NGP V, is a 19-year-old Nigerian poet, a Star Prize awardee, a Best of the Net nominee, and an HCAF member. He is the author of a poetry collection: Rewrite The Stars. He won the ZODML Poetry Prize and was a runner-up for The Nigeria Prize for Teen Authors. He was also shortlisted for the Rachel Wetzsteon Chapbook Award, Wingless Dreamer Poetry Prize and The Breakbread Literacy Project. He has his works on Lolwe, The Deadlands, Shrapnel Magazine, Rough Cut Press, The Temz Review, Brittle Paper, Poetry Column, Off Topic Publishing, Eunoia Review, and elsewhere. In 2018, he was shortlisted for the Wole Soyinka International Cultural Exchange. He can be reached on Twitter @saheedtsunday, or Instagram @_saheedsunday.