
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