Teen Lit Journal

It Is Well—Arikewusola Abdul-Awal At night, when the earth dresses in the cassock of darkness// I supine on the thatched mat, spying the rain beaten rafters// I lay my head on the interlocked fingers, cerebrating on ‘what next?’  Memories of the past trickle down my veins// Dragging me to the dreary days of failures, of rejections & of mistakes// Those memories wage wars on my tender heart// Boom! My heart is bombed & I become a lethargic soul in front of fate.  I ogle the secluded angle in my room// I envisage my present; Sitting with its raised knees–arms are folded round them// Like a bony-ribbed beggar, begging for a better bundle in his bowl.  The other angle displays a blurred foreshadowing of my life’s drama. I crane// But my future is a strand of black hair in the gathering of grays// I blink, blink, blink and blink until my gravid eyes give birth to brines. My heart is an overpowered empire// Future of hopes, in fear and dangers// & I am a tethered bu...

The Tale Of A Globetrotter Once upon a time, a traveller comes to our village from a black world behind the sea, wearing a wetted face  from tears of the clouds. he sang like a canary  of stories in his lonely journeys, 1, 2, 3 steps to Babylon to drink from nursing woods a milk & some gourds of wine 3, 4, 5 and 6 to Aleppo & lay his heart on the  laughing mountains, awaiting the sky's cry to pour the tears and saliva on the dancing earth, in it; is a pregnancy of Zechariah's tomb. “He once told us how an air take him away to the valley of diamonds & how a river mouth swallowed his town men”. yesterday's night i dreamed, “of our guest globetrotter, stole our lands into his pinched pocket to sell its men for slavery to the night hunting owls, while the trees cried out of war our men flies out to Cairo & leave him die slowly  of thirst on a hot desert”. Bio: Mubarak Said is a Nigerian poet,essayist and short story writer from the great city of Gombe. Hi...

  Blood and Gold —Testimony Odey I birth the voices of women Carved in the calabashes of gold Whose content was drained by The throat of men hungry for Something their eyes couldn’t grasp Thirsty for  liquid  that would sting their throat Red and black, these men wore A sign that even blood couldn’t shake  A single bone in the ir  body A sign that wherever they walked in Darkness and gloom painted the atmosphere I birth the voices of women who had  No strength to speak up for themselves Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.  The tides of the deep blue sea They follow the rhythm of these tides Even their heads bop to this rhythm  In the middle of the night When no one’s by their side And they are left all alone to cry I birth the voices of women  Whose voice were  too  weak To alert passers-by of the danger That had befallen them I birth the voices of women Whose blood is tinged with gold. Bio:  Testimony Odey is a Nigerian teen writer, poet,...

Requiem To Broken Bodies Igniting Into Poetry And i gazed on nature only to find the carcass of this broken body who says there is hope? find me cure for this body is hollow   i wish to ignite a poem besides this sagging body say, i might just pass out the pain  by clouding my heart with strings of your hands   look, my humanity is ablaze i am drowning in doom's silence  just breathe a sign towards  my destination  just tell me; i would not drown in this waters Bio: Michelle Adegboro is a 13yr old Nigeria poet, spoken word artist and short story writer. She has many role model and mentors she looks up to. She aspires to build up a name for herself through poetry.

The End —Salim Yakubu Akko tears from a gloomy stream came & took away my little being as i laid down counting the unhatched days  i planned to weeve   into a book of life; of glistening memories.  & a razor blade was given to me  to shave the growing forest on my head; of gnawing histories interwoven betwixt the muscles and my arteries. the time came & i could hear and feel how the gently swaying  like the flavored lines  of an old haiku,  leaves of the mango tree that grandpa used to say  were the every single breath of my life dried  & fell, announcing the acme of the life i murdered nakedly with the cutlasses of my hands. Bio: Salim Yakubu Akko is a Nigerian writer and poet. He has his works published/forthcoming in Applied Worldwide, World Voices Magazine, Trouvaille Review, Ice Lolly Review, ILA Magazine, Scratch Poetry Magazine, Upwrite Magazine, My Woven Poetry and elsewhere. He has also been shortlisted for the 2...

Moth —Soneye Raheemat Ayomide In the depth of nights, When every soul has kissed red eyes welcome,  And the night walkers struggle to bribe sleep,  For a moment.    Air was stiff and bloody,  Moths flew into the next household ready for the journey,  Right into the nocturnal land of the dead.    Eating deep into their poverty stuck flesh,  It tastes bad with poverty,  But it's death anyways,  They have different taste from vampires.    Dressed in beauty robes,  Through the inner eyes, you'd see bloodstained garment That stink aloud!!!!! Bio: Soneye Raheemat Ayomide (Prema) is a 20 year old poet and writer. She is currently a student of school of nursing idi aba,Abeokuta. She picked writing as an hobby as it relieve stress and expresses her mind as she is a shy type. She has written many poems which are unpublished.

  brother's head/father's sacrifice —   Chukwuma Eke Pacella   now home has become a city  of lost bones and falling waters. i wonder what  god  thought  when (s)he placed souls on the metals of hunger;  i mean spinning out the humanity in them  listen, i know brother's body is hidden  somewhere in father's heart  perhaps father had traded his blood for noodles  when his cv turned into rotten papers  perhaps he had been loyal to the call of his stomach,  became an abraham  and led brother into the woods of sacrifice;  isaac died after all.  now mother still looks at my neighbor as though  he has the smell of demonic altars  she says her son lays in a corner of that boy eyes  but i suppose she is too much of a weakling  to search father's own eyes and heart. now pastor jay performs exorcism on my innocent tongue because i told mother;  that night brother slept outside forever, i ...

  INTO THE BADLAND & this place looks like an overt oven, wear the colours of a doomful dome, & this looks like a skeletal shelter, so we all gaze in awe at the tall edifice. But the taciturn clamour blows like the flickering flame of our fury. We scramble, we saw brave men rolling heads like rustic youngsters. Oh strange land, where on the map is this? These men whose faces sticthed with horror giggled loudly, eerily like ancient beasts Goddamn this sonofabitch! With this, they break it like bad news: Badland. Where your ancestors wore the garment of grace & ruins but in them we buried the piousness of a generation. So we look forward like it seem we've lost it, we mumble & then they chuckle. This place you stand is called Seed. & it is a must that you chew what they grow. A shell of sorrow scatters in our souls, As we plunge into the Badlands instead of home! Bio: Mohammed Oluwatimileyin Taoheed is a Nigerian bilingual writer, professional editor, legal resear...

THEY ASKED WHY MY POEMS ALWAYS SCENT OF MY  LATE BROTHER Adamu Yahuza Abdullahi   I don't know of other poets, but I  find it difficult to nurse grief & not  feed it food. I write every poem as if to say, a means for the loamy Earth to open up & soak away the shackles hung on my neck. You start a poem and see your being shrouded in your shadow.  They asked why my poems scent of my brother, I do not know how more to write poems here, in this space, where even the sun is been eaten up by abyss. You borrowed yourself some strength to your waned hands to write a poem, somewhere at the centroid you saw your belly eating itself up. I have carried enough light, enough laughter that are  not mine. There is a country piling into darkness &  then there is me— a boy with eyes filled up with enough images to form a photoframe; images he only see in dreams. I pour my eyes into a cup of coffee every morning, a new way to conform with grief. I breathe lig...

SCARS   —Shafa’atu Muhammad   What do you think of beauty?  The face of dawn squinting   For a glimpse of a new birthed  today Or our fingers throwing out Freckles from our noses Mending insecurities with wounds I live beside heartaches  Braiding plights into tears Tearing down walls  made with bamboo sticks  The moon will rest today on my palms This sanity will pack its bags and leave  When dusk comes Tell it I have sowed my name Into the garment of madness Bio: Shafa'atu Muhammad is a Nigerian teen poet,  spoken word artiste and a writer,  born on the 1'st of April in 2005 in Nasarwa state,  her works have appeared and are forthcoming  in the pine cone review,  the Kaduna Hilltop Creative Arts foundation's *INKED* Anthology ,  The Glacial Hills Magazine,  The Let time heal you Anthology,  The Dreamy world Anthology, the Enghausa Kwaraption Anthology and Upwrite Magazine,  she has performed at the...

Save Me  —Ogwuche Bella Red swallowed me  And l'm a black man  Learning to reincarnate,  Leaning into a soil Sprouting fear,  Save me In this realm,  We chase our nightmares and dreams  Like broken mirages A bag swallows a boy's destiny And we are oiling our palms and skin  To serenade each other.  Save me Bio: Ogwuche Bella is a 13years writer . she is currently in SS1. She has filled her world with writing with support from her mentor Mr Blessing, her mom ,dad and also many friends. She won first consolation price for  Uzo_Udegbunam poetry price and many others.

  For Naomi Williams By Yahuza Abdulkadir & she broke her name into a dirge & drowned her lungs into a drum & folded her body into a foot & walked away from home. she left a blank paper staring at the tip of a pen waiting for ink to flood its lines. her poems still breathe in memories separated by elegy – singing into the ears of bereft souls. her head knocked goodbye to the walls & her finger drew despair in the air & death built a tombstone around her body. Bio: Yahuza Abdulkadir is a Nigerian writer and poet. He is a member of Hill-top Creative Arts Foundation and Unimaid Artists Club. Yahuza, is studying earth science at the prestigious University of Maiduguri. His works are published in Poemify Publishers Inc, Spillwords, Terror House Magazine, Opinion Nigeria, The Daily Reality, Melbourne Corner Culture and elsewhere.  When he is not writing he engages in social and humanitarian activities in his community.

SWALLOWTAIL AT THE NIGHT GARDEN By Abdulrazak Salihu I believe I carried the Snapdragon out of the woods And named it a wild flower. There’s a drip in the wind Into your eyes For girls your age I poured a rock into being  And it clouded my head. There are crystals in sand And flower-perfume  By your chin, And freckles of dust Like saltwater could swallow worms. In my last rite I’m still barricading my eyes Even as light falls as petals  Of warmth from a blue moon. Abdulrazaq Salihu is a 17 year old Nigerian poet and writer.He is a member of the hilltop creative arts foundation and was the winner of the December edition of the splendors of Dawn poetry foundation poetry and short story contest . He is part of the panel for the Nigeria Review(TNR) .He was shortlisted for both categories of the Nigerian prize for teen authors (poetry and prose)where his poetry manuscript Constellations won the poetry category and his collection of short stories Hiccups was the first runner up...

Radiant Colors By Sunday T. Saheed today, I saw two boys  fight. & as if words  were gold, they  cursed their parents & cruci- fied them with hot tongues.  The sun doesn’t  shine here, I think. & perhaps, who would know  the essence of a mother like a boy drenched by petals of rain waiting for God to lazarus  his   mother, so she could shift the tomb  she  sleeps in  & announce her awakening. herein, everything I touch turns to red. someone said it’s a sign that  a withered flower doesn’t shake its  old age away.  —not the magnolia, not the quince. some  days  back,  I thought solitary wasn’t  a word in the lexicon  —until my shadow  I thought was  with me  disappears  into the aperture of my fears.  Telephone rings , the call disconnects —ding! the roof of this  house  cracks on me, &  the murals on the wall fades off its texture. so...