maybe my aunt is the female messiah
i am now 24, a sad thing, & a small gospel of grief.
i have been fed with my memories
like it’s the bread of life.
because i am careful of the tiny bites of writing about grief
i have nodded my head
to my aunt’s memories & called her savior.
i am careful of the secrets on my tongue,
peeling them is like giving new names to my grief.
writing this poem is a blasphemy,
how can i describe the length
of how people entered her body.
i remember how she laid down & gave her
body as a ransom for me to be saved.
every story has its own messiah,
i am blessed mine wasn’t crucified.
when i said my childhood was engulfed with war
i mean i have seen babies’ insides
turned in toys scattered on the streets
i mean i saw
my cousin’s fingers gotten
soft from holding gun.
he must has been proud of himself
of ending people lives.
he must has been proud of himself
for allowing me to see his gun.
when i said my childhood was engulfed with war,
i mean i have obeyed gun
& called it omnipresent, omniscient, & omnipotent.
i mean i have been spoon-fed with grief.
Jeremy T. Karn writes from somewhere in Liberia. His work had appeared in the 20.35: Contemporary African Poets Anthology, The Whale Road, Ice Floe Press, Lolwe, Feral Poetry, The Kissing Dynamite, Up the Staircase Quarterly Auto Focus Magazine, and elsewhere. His chapbook (Miryam Magdalit) has been selected by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani (The African Poetry Book Fund), in collaboration with Akashic Books, for the 2021 New-Generation African Poets chapbook box set.
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