The day I met Rumcake, I was ready to die. March, 2016. I was depressed. I remember distinctly thinking “If I hadn’t been born, it may have been better”. I know, I know everybody knows me as a happy, noisy person. So The Peter can be depressed? Yes he can. And I was. I had no desire to… Read more →
We are Not Goats
A poem is not a poem Just because you break sentences into run-off lines It is not because you use words As sharp and swords To show that you can rhyme All the time It is not a poem because you employ Gargantuan phrases of flabbergasting opacity It is not a poem because your metaphors are like butter to… Read more →
Full Circle
You’re back at the place you swore you’d never be. You love her even though she’s smashed your heart to pieces. She smashed your x-box to a thousand more pieces. She destroyed all the ties you had to all your friends. At first you told them they didn’t understand the responsibilities of being in a committed relationship headed… Read more →
oga joseph
When I was in Lagos this February, I went to see a movie with my Friend of Many Years. We’d met in camp during NYSC orientation in Nkwerre, Imo state. I believe it was the luxurious sound of my voice and my amazing speech on parade ground that made her fall madly in love with me agree to talk to… Read more →
Spitting Pap (or my 26th Birthday Speech)
It was my birthday yesterday and I hated it. Shocker? No. Not like something spectacularly bad happened. Just a series of tiny incidents that made me lose interest in the day. I’d been sick with food poisoning the day before. I woke up and somehow twisted my foot as I was getting out of bed. And then I tried… Read more →
For Writers: How to prevent plagiarism
Sorry it took me this long. Work and all that. ____________ so very broadly, plagiarism is when one person uses another person’s creative work (music, video, painting, writing and so on) without properly crediting the orignal creator of the work. Okay I made that up (it applies to written works). It is a bad thing because it makes people feel annoyed… Read more →
Ramiya II
The second time i met Ramiya, there were no fireworks. There were, however, tiny adrenaline worms crawling up my veins when she texted me “i’m in class. let you know when i get out”. I should have been watching straight outta Compton with the guys at Yorkdale but this was definitely more important in the schedule of things. let me… Read more →
Beni’s Cross
It was a big day for Beni. That interview he had long desired just came through and he did not want anything to stop him. He tried to convince himself that this time the job was his, standing in front of his cracked mirror, his hair reflecting in four unequal parts definitely needed to be combed. He searched his drawer for… Read more →
Autumn Leaves
I love the sound of the word. Autumn. It makes me think of “automatic” and the word ‘column”. Columns make me think of Greece and Rome and the collapse of empires. The Fall of empires. Maybe this is why the Americans call Autumn “Fall”. Because the leaves drying up and lining the streets with red and gold leaves remind them… Read more →
John Mangoseed III
A tiny insect was crawling up my left leg. That was how I knew the feeling had returned to my skin. It tickled. It started slowly from the sole of my feet. Those callused feet that my mother would have killed me for if she knew i still had them. When I was a boy, she would force a pumice… Read more →