Something About Beauty Is Broken
in the face of dark things, a boy stands there with broken stories on his palms.
a fire flames, holding a burning country on the lips of its people.
watching tomorrow on a girl’s womb with new life, searching for beauty.
faces are masked, eyes speaking flowers, palms holding brokenness within.
I often asked God to strip our home of mournful scents.
to shape shift our body out of any line of mourning.
to deflower the dying fragrance that cringes before our eyes,
and sprout a new eden of flowers on the people’s lips.
for those who believe hope is another name for anxious struggles.
in this poem, i traveled my body out of a home in a galaxy of ruined things.
to a new home, where loved ones bloom, their scent sweet.
with tongues planted, watered by peace, and flowers blooming.
new roses speaking their scent, a reminder that tomorrow is here.
When Prayers Are Now Dead Things
i pray this poem in the language of flowers,
with a prayer mat of grief.
spraying the splash of anything named a lifeless body,
holding a girl in the eyes of nakedness,
crawling her body in the name of beauty.
there are dead stories your father died with on his tongue,
that taste of apocalypse.
boys are another name for elegy.
i hold my mother’s body in the lines of mourning
Just hope and a snippet of light,
Light + chaos.
Tomorrow, i’m a stubborn girl.
coming with an ugly face,
like a moon that hides her beauty
until the face of night is doubted by day.
Salihu Muhammad Ebba LEGEND BARD is a 17-year-old Award Winning Nigerian Writer || Artist || Legend || Poet || Educationist || Researcher || Books Reviewer || Essayist || Short Stories Writer || Graphic Designer || Smartphone Photographer and Spoken Word Artist from Ebba. He was the Second Place Winner of the Quarterly Writing Contest themed A farewell, A new Dawn. And won 6th position of the time out4africa Minna Photography Contest (3rd edition). He is currently a final-year student of Legend International School, Minna. With a strong foundation from Guided Medal Model School, Minna. He is also a Member of the Hill-Top Creative Art Foundation. He has been published nationally & internationally in different magazines and journals like Kalahari Review, Lit Magazine, Arts Lounge Magazine, Ikike Arts, and others. You can access some of his work here. He can be contacted on Facebook as Salihu Muhammad Ebba and Instagram at sm._ebba.