Teen Lit Journal

  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...