“Headless” by Nwuguru Chidiebere Sullivan

Nwuguru Chidiebere Sullivan (he/him/his) is a speculative writer of Izzi, Abakaliki ancestry; a finalist for the SPFA Rhysling Award, a nominee for the Forward Prize, and a data science enthusiast. He was the winner of the 2021 Write About Now’s Cookout Literary Prize. He is published in Strange Horizon, Nightmare Mag, Augur Mag, Filednotes Journal, Kernel Magazine, Mizna, and elsewhere. 

Twitter: @wordpottersul1

Author Foreword:

The poems were hugely inspired by the current happenings in Nigeria where the citizens are at the mercy of different terrorist groups. Even when the citizens tried changing the narratives through the power of their votes, their wills were thwarted by the government that is supposed to uphold and respect their democratic choice.

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Headless

(after Natalie Diaz)        

                  “Nigeria will prosecute anyone found to have breached 

                   the country's ban on the social media firm, Twitter.”

                   —BBC

                      June 5th, 2021

Have we not come near enough like hair,

like blood, like sweat to the six decades 

of this skin? Wasn't enough ball of sun lost 

to the gluttony of this land brimming with 

yawning graves? Have we forgotten how the 

limbs of a man are quadrupled to a god exercising 

his powers from the four cardinal points? Here, 

all we know is how the zings of bullets eat 

a chimney into what is wet & fleshy, so that 

it may have enough proteins to ease off 

the wrestling rain from every tired cloud. 

The bullets here, measure the depth of one's 

flesh by swimming through the dirt of blood

& still, come out clean & bare like a pure 

conscience. My Twitter is scared to warm-boot, 

says the government laid a cold ban on it & I'm 

full-throated with grief for myself who came out 

of a bright syntax to morph a phrase into a sentence, 

forgetting that every word is a conglomerate of 

letters which once knew independence. A country 

is a bordered sentence— it doesn't permit winging, 

it abhors flight, which is why it forces the stony 

hands of each day down our throats as templates 

of laws, which is why it takes our head first, 

leaving us to live the rest of our lives headless— 

hopeless. O ample— O bold— O blunt & blue,

how come my shine ages as it 

passes through you?