I’m so lit & by that, I don’t mean I’m on fire. I mean I’m still breathing. I mean my body has not shed light & colour. I have survived the guillotine thus far. Evaded the pyre. Blame it on the shuckin’ & jivin’ for strangers on Broad Street. Blame it on the mad resilience of the self-righteous. I mistook trauma for dissent & dissent for culture & culture for postmodern fanaticism. Perhaps, this is all self-preservation. Is that such a bad thing? I’ve tasted the flesh of a chapel. Drunk the blood-wine of the land’s heretics. On that 419 shit, I conned the serpent into taking a bite of my fruit. Pressed the priest against the haunted wall. God-sized black eye. Oh the rapture. Always seeking new ways of burning. To become a monument of leaving. Eternal street cred.
Header photograph © Iloh Onyekachi.