I Who am Still Alive/Who Never Will be By Chinaza James-Ibe | First Published on Akewi Magazine

I who can only exist within a body. I who can only exist within a body that I can not make mine. I come with rotten fruits for the tree that birthed me: mangoes, paw-paw, avocados strewn over my scrubbed body like a metaphor for mortal sin. In a dream, my mother slinks a confession from between my teeth and it splatters onto the floor, a pink calf — I am lost. I who has never found home; who has been lost since the ceasing of my mother's labour pangs; who, out of greed, almost took more than the life apportioned to me. I am a bird. I, the bird who flees from the nest in its own feathers. I, the corn seed, stuck in the jagged tires of a CAT truck. I come from the fading pages of a novel; my name could be anything if you look closely; my homeland could be anywhere if you just take me; my body is candle wax. There are no paths to where my mother birthed me; there is no evidence to prove the beginning of my existence; my blood spills without a voice—without color, like the shadow of a flame. I who am the shadow of a colorful flame, I who am the shadow of a flame—who never was, who never is. I who never will be.