My name is Ego. And I have buried love thrice.

What she felt was well deserved guilt, guilt for the years she treated her sister like a burden, guilt from the fact that her sister was always having a faceoff with death while she was living her best life.

When people see this on the news, they feel sorry that this is the place I call home.

but look at the sky! how it 

spreads! a thing in vastness

While earlier writers used themes of culture and tradition, the more contemporary Nigerian literature has expanded impressively and now draws from the realities of the country’s social processes, from women’s rights and feminism to post-war and post-colonial identity.

I went to my Grandma Mamie’s every summer, sometimes even during the year, but this was the first time Roosevelt had visited me.

A woman leaned her back on a broken wall/ her face a deep secret in her hijab

The connection between my identity as a Black woman and my relationship with my hair goes deep. It means acknowledging the history of my hair and why perms and wigs even exist as hair styling options.

That was the first time she learned that she had to set herself on fire to make other people happy.

Bottles of beer to their mouths, they all anxiously wait for him to at least say something, acknowledging that it is best to let a man crawl out of his shell on his own.

The burden of loving this baby weighed him down like the chains that had shackled his forebears. And hers.

I’ve watched mothers  / Break into rivers / Before their children’s / Sprawled bodies.

It was too late. We had tasted sin and seen that the repercussions were unclear and improbable.

Then I heard blog posts made money for writers. Like every click they got converted to money, like Linda Ikeji's blog. “When Google Ads enter your blog like this, you will blow.” So I tried blogging. I didn’t blow. 

Are you a bot?

It is one of those mornings when you wake up with your troubles staring you in the eye.

Ignore the temptation to acknowledge that as you grow older, the country’s thorns grow younger. Live like a bird. Do not think of the future.

Once my life was brilliant with you in it

Dear Levi,

Four weeks ago, I buried my bracelet, my ring, and my baby.