TagLove

Bread, Honey by Tìmíléyìn Akínsànyà

B

I have never known love to be this kind and freeI have never felt this way beforeMy heart relaxes in your touch and I am allowed to be myselfTo take off the masks I wear that shield me from the painLayerByLayerYou take them off and kiss meYou take them off and see me There is a permanent music in the air,A melody that rises from my depthsIt fills my ears with sweet words and poetryWe go together...

I am no expert at comprehending grief but I continue to do it by Clara Jack

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I wrote an honest moving piece on grief in 2021 after I lost an aunt and my mum’s best friend in the same month. Losing Aunty Lolo and Uncle Darlington in July 2021 was my spirit telling grief, ‘e don do’ because I had been grieving long before then. Grief has altered my life and continues to do it but in August of 2021 I decided to write all I had learned about it in a 7-part memoir titled...

Without Him by Muhibbah Yahya

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Without you I have been nothing but a broken shell holding up a façade of wholeness,For how can I be whole when without you I am half agony, half wonder completely and irrevocably incomplete,I sit starless night after night gazing up in search of the star that was once subject to your dandy,But night after night I am fruitless,Because like half of my soul it has twinkled outLeaving nothing but a...

DROWN by Ordeezy

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If you fall in love with a poet;You will fall too deep but you’ll love it.You will lose every reason to struggle and fall with a smile.You will dive in the ocean of his words;Words so perfect like water from spring they will clean the heart.You will bury your soul in the sea of his words and hope he recreates you perfectly.For a poet is a god and his words make flesh.When you love a...

Redamancy by Ade

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The book store smelled different, it wasn’t the usual scent of new and old pages, there was something else, you look around wondering if the other patrons notice, it doesn’t seem like they do, you shrug and go on about your business, maybe it’s just you, you think to yourself. You don’t know what you’re looking for yet, you will know when you see it, this was your routine, every Christmas Eve...

How do I keep this memory at bay? by Deborah Koche

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I have a thing. Sometimes I cannot remember what happened 10 minutes ago. My train of thought diminishes until it’s nothing and so I try to start from my earliest memory. The one I dubbed “The Indelible.” The flashes usually start from his sickening hands on me, but what happened after that? Another flash comes and he is lifting my dress. I am only five years old, but I know that this feels wrong...

A New Dawn by Paul Gold

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Titun Owurọ 1. Olúfúnmiláyọ̀ The morning was calm and gave no hint of what was to come. The healed wounds of sixty-one years would be peeled. “Grandma, one baba is here to see you,” Owólabí said as he led me to the room where he entertained the said baba. I always believed that a smell couldn’t bring back memories, but his scent brought me back to my youth. I had been in his arms too long...

Last Rays by Tenebris

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Things look darker now The sights that used to brighten my days Are now the causes for clouds above my head The sounds I loved to listen to Are now nothing but static in my ears The supple skin I loved rubbing my hands on Now feels like I’m simply rubbing an ice cold stone You’re here yet not I smile at your actions Yet you’re no longer the focus of my attention I try to act...

The Mess You Made Me by Anita Don

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ONE “Let’s quit Jason.” Samantha said. She was afraid to look directly into his eyes. But she had to,in order to prove her boldness. There were broken glasses scattered everywhere in the sitting room. The kitchen tap was rushing which made water overflow into the sitting room. The house was a mess.“Look into my eyes and tell me you don’t love me,”Jason screamed...

Questioning our Love by Oyinkansola Alausa

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Let’s see our coming together as a unionBut  do we see ourselves as companionWhen we trail in the art of  love as the only solutionThat ignites the fire in our expressions Are you in loveI’m I in loveOr we both seek for emotional satisfactionWhen we create alternate realities in our mindTo accomplish our set stake Are you in loveI’m I in loveOr we run in line with the...

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Pencilmarks and Scribbles Magazine was founded in 2017 by Clara Jack to be a home for African writers, asking them to come as they are and giving them room for growth. The publication aims to give back to the Nigerian Literary scene for the things it has given us.