Michael Akuchie is a Nigerian emerging poet. He studies English and Literature at the University of Benin, Nigeria. His recent  work appears in Barren Magazine, Anti-Heroin Chic, Ghost City Review, Kissing Dynamite, Burning House,  Neologism Poetry Journal and elsewhere. He is @Michael_Akuchie on Twitter.

THE CITY IS MY FAMILY

i am a city   mad with fear

with sunshine eating up bodies in the open air

i am a dried up river   rain is a defunct visitor  

i am safe   in the crevice of a suicide note  

i press the words against my chest    absorbing every single sad sentence

i fold my mouth into a monologue   hourlong recitation of grief

i kiss a kitchen knife   i am too christian for a dagger   

i say if i must go home    it must be through the mouth of a bullet   

this city sits in darkness    at 3am, i swirl in a glass of wine     

i carry ghosts in my sleep   i am miles from love

that is why i forsake my body    overgrown with hate

i reek of neglect   call me this city i am never a promise of growth

i decry living in public    i hold no name for this skin

the universe forgets me    i am an unrecognized cluster of breaths

i know of a boy dying   loss plugged into his mouth

i contain no exit road for sadness    hope is not held by the teeth

life is death    my body grooms self for extinction

withering flowers on my mane    

the city is housed within    personalized pain

i wear loss as a tattoo  forged from drowning in hurt