There was only so much time before everyone else knew what she knew about bodies: they hide nothing and betray everything.

Your dermatologist, Dr Patik, says it’d get better, but there is really no cure. You’re a wilting tree.

He cooed over our newborn and gently stroked his cheek, smiling in unabashed adoration.

Pidgin English as a lingua franca in West Africa has united people, creating a bond that transcends borders.

You pushed the doctor into the waters of desire and made him drown in it. What is it about sorrow that makes humans just want to do sensual things?

Once you were my beloved. I swam/in rivers, then oceans, then not at all

Sometimes, my roots—Ife, Babalawo, his cowries, the gods, maami—they make it hard not to believe.

I am sad that grief breaks you into strong fragments/ of strength, for us.

To make things worse, she had no child—something that, in the eyes of her detractors, was the ultimate proof of her witchcraft.

I wanted to say I wasn't a big girl. I was only eleven years old! Eleven was still a child.

A poem by Ariyo Ahmad

I wondered what Mama was protecting about my late father. What dirty linen had she discovered and hidden before anyone came across it?

Imagine that as the song plays in your head, you wonder why your woman has chosen to change her skin.

Christina Purity bought a bottle full of curry spice and thyme and stuck it deep into her vagina so she could spice up her sex life

A story from The Hope, The Prayer, The Anthem. Written by Joshua Chizoma. Read by Amanda.

Shortlisted for the 2021 Afritondo Short story Prize

A poem by Muyiwa Adesokun

I get a wonderful greedy feeling in my stomach that POOP Matters will be back here once the opposition leader gets into power and gets drunk with it and morphs into another problematic dictator.

The first thing we saw was a big chimney that expelled the soot of lost brothers and sisters that couldn’t breathe anymore.

I don’t understand why a man should not once in a while prefer the natural feminine scent of his woman. All this fake fake perfume lifestyle is not my thing.