Bottom Of The Ocean

Out here, someone is speaking 
     about wonder, asking,

who pays a whopping $250,000 
     to be voyaged to the Titanic 

their death? If I may, I would like to 
     pray for the kindness of waves.

The past few months have gifted me
     scars beyond my own self-induced 

scars, not so much healing, but a 
     wrecking into the hush of hearts.

I could read the news for hours, 
     everything reaching for a different 

kind of destruction. Submarine and
     loss for example, and also

a cowering in displacement, a bomb,
     an etching of gory memories in

one’s eyes to endlessly hold on to. 
     Observation lately, the earth is

shameless— the sea hid bodies away 
     from land, and how tragic that 

this planet was merely watching. Truth is: 
     I’ve not been satisfied with the universe’s
     
speechlessness. Last night, I dreamt
     of whales, their bellies delighting in

humans and their bones. 
     God forbid. God forbid. 

At home, I am traumatized but I do not
     show it. My image in the mirror says

the way to defy fear is to mask oneself 
     with muteness. So I sit still,

holding my guard up with silence,
     a weapon hopefully unbeatable. 


     
October 2020, Lekki Toll-Gate

if we die here tonight, 
remember that we did not ask for anything 
except for a life 

where juveniles can stand innocently 
at a roadside in Lagos 
& no bullet walks into the wide 
of their chests. 

tonight, we obstinate youths, 
assemble in the similitude of our grief,
overpassing the curfew, 
disinterested in who returns home or not.

listen, there is no time for bemoaning,
let them shoot at us—the police, and the army too,
let them watch our bodies still 
yearning for a new Nigeria 
even in the face of objects 
displacing us into graveyards.

About the author:

Hassan A. Usman, NGP II, is a Black Poet and a lover of cats. His works have appeared or are forthcoming in Folksway Press, World Voices Magazine, Isele Magazine, Riverstone, Blue Route Journal, Blue Marble Review, Welter Journal, Invisible Lit, The Madrigal Press, Paper Lanterns, Trampset, Icefloe Press, Olumo Review, Lunaris Review, Afrocritik, Poetrycolumn-NND, and elsewhere. He’s an alumnus of the SprinNG Writing Fellowship 2022. Hassan enjoys cooking, listening to Nigerian street music, and juggling writing with modelling. Say hi to him on Twitter or Instagram @Billio_Speaks

*Feature image by Samson Idowu on Unsplash