
Rahma O. Jimoh (she/her) is from Ogun state, Nigeria. She was a winner of the Poetry Translation, Lagos-London competition ‘22 and a runner-up in the Abubakar Gimba short story prize ‘21. A fellow in the Undertow Writing workshop, she has been published or has works forthcoming in Salt Hill Journal, Ake Review, Parentheses Art, Agbowo, Tinderbox Poetry, Lucent Dreaming, Feral, Isele Magazine, Tab Journal & others. She was a mentor in the 2023 SpringNg writing fellowship, she edits poetry at Olumo Review and is a prose reader at Chestnut Review. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter.
Hysteria
for aunt S
who wears her clothes inside out. she laughs longer than necessary because laughter knows the length
and breadth of her void, the square root of her pain—a hysterical cloud burst, wild as madness. her
cheekbones are high, curved from burying her twins. it takes over her. goes through her womb. over
her mind, engulfs everything she lived for. her laughter is a facade. deceiving. burying everything that
cannot be planted. the drugs won't work to shift her mind back. the prayers have not delivered her
mind to its rightful space. what can prayers do to a mind ridden with grief? what miracle can prayers
orchestrate to a mind that has run out of believing? only the sight of a baby is an amen to her
healing—returns her for a fleeting second. her mouth breaks into hysteria again. she sees her twins in
every baby. but not long enough. not long enough to shift her mind back to its rightful box. a baby
wails, it breaks my aunt. it breaks her mind. breaks her legs into a splint. she shovels the earth as if to
dig out her sanity; to dig out her grief; to dig out what was long gone; to dig out the leftovers of their
memories—
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