POETRY BY DEAD MEN A black screen. Muffled noise and music in the background. NADIA (O.S.) Sienna plays dress up in a green dress -- Naomi and Nadia tell Sienna they're pregnant -- Sienna reads poetry

Her poetry explores immigration, language, womanhood, and Black familial structures, blending lyric intensity Her work has appeared in Bloodroot Lit. , Clamantis , and Frontier Poetry , where she was named a finalist

Her poetry has been published in Southern Cultures , Apogee ,  Scalawag Magazine , and elsewhere. She performs in Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill based poetry reading series'. Nina was a featured performer at NC State’s Gregg Museum of Art and Design. I can’t understand most of her poetry. 9. I ask God about poetry and God says veins, the ocean, the dirt (meaning earth).

Idza Luhumyo was born in Mombasa, Kenya. She studied law at the University of Nairobi, earned an MA in Comparative Literature at SOAS--University of London, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Texas State University.  Her writing has appeared in various publications, including Transition Magazine ,  African Arguments , the  Masters Review , and the  Porter House Review . Her short story, "Five Years Next Sunday," was awarded the 2021 Short Story Day Africa Prize and the 2022 Caine Prize for African Writing. Other awards include the Margaret Busby New Daughters of Africa Award and the Civitella Ranieri Writing Fellowship. She currently lives and works in Austin, TX. But That's a Long, Long Time Ago There's something calming about being stuck in an international airport, for hours, watching the world go by as you remain still, waiting to hear a voice call out your flight number. You're at peace, serene even, in spite of the uncomfortable seats on which you can only sleep in fits and starts. In spite of the dubious Wi-Fi that you know you shouldn't trust but to which you connect anyway. In spite of the fact that anytime you have to use the bathroom, you have to work out the complicated math of lining the toilet seat with tissue paper and then arranging yourself over it as you try to hold on to your carry-on luggage. You are on your way to a short story festival in Cork, the second-largest city in Ireland. You set out from San Marcos—the small, charming city in Central Texas that houses the Creative Writing program in which you are enrolled. You are taking this trip because, in a lucky sequence of events, which you suppose is how these things tend to go, a short story you wrote many years ago won a major prize. The journey to Cork is long, and it has been a long time coming. During the visa application process, you had to teach yourself how to trust American couriers with your passport and not think of the many ways everything could go very wrong. Once, things do in fact go wrong: when your passport with the visa stamp is returned, someone in the leasing office makes a mistake. Yes, it was delivered to the office, they say to you. But for the life of them, they cannot remember to what apartment they sent it. There is a moment there where you forget how to breathe. The person you are speaking to is chirpy and casual, typing away on the keyboard as she tells you, coolly, that your passport—this bright blue booklet of a document without which you cannot travel, or prove your right to be in the USA—is lost. Would you like to give it a day or so, she asks, see whether anything comes up? She is a sweetheart, really, the person saying these things to you, probably a Zoomer if her 90s-inspired outfit is anything to go by. She is the company's newest employee, one of those people who have a frantic aura about them: always rushing about, chewing fast, typing fast, talking fast, as if they had come to the world late, and were trying to play catch-up. Usually, when you come to the leasing office for your packages, you find her excitability charming, endearing. But as she finally looks away from her computer and tells you to go to your apartment and wait for your passport to magically appear, you pity her for the wrath you’re about to unleash. You tell her, in the quietest voice you can manage, that you will do no such thing. The clipped tone works: in less than an hour, your passport is found. # Cork is exactly how you expected an Irish city to be from the Irish novels you've previously devoured. Even though you've come to appreciate how big cities give you an anonymity that you disappear into, you're a small-town girl and find yourself charmed by how this rustic city seems to close in on itself, as if its buildings are huddling towards each other, keeping each other warm. Back home, in the artist circles in which you ran in your twenties, Ireland has always been looked on kindly because it shares with Kenya a brutal British colonial history. Your hosts are kind. Everything goes as planned: the taxi picking you from the airport; the drive through the rustic route to the hotel; the warm reception the next morning. At first, the restrained demeanour of the festival organizers is an adjustment: in the past year or so that you've been in America, you've gotten used to a certain fussiness, an outward friendliness that seems obligatory. But here, the pleasantness is at a remove, and people are more than happy to ease into silence when they run out of things to say. It is glorious. Maybe this is why you trust it. And even when the weather drops to single digits and you realize you didn't carry enough warm clothes, something inside of you thaws. # On the day of your reading, you stand in front of Irish writers and literary enthusiasts and read a story that pulls no punches in its critique of people who look like them. After your reading, there is applause. The sound of this prolonged applause will return to your mind when, months after the Cork trip, when back home in Nairobi for the Christmas break, someone at a literary gathering will remark that the African stories most likely to win literary prizes are those that criticize the very people who award them. But on that day, after you read your story, an elderly white woman walks up to you outside the auditorium and wraps you in a hug. You catch a whiff of Chanel No. 5 you usually scoff at, but which you start to like from then on. She calls you brave. Clutching your scarves and jackets, you walk down a cobbled path, and she tells you, a little haltingly, that she is a librarian and that she, too, is thinking of publishing some things she's jotted down throughout the years. She tells you that your bravery has inspired her to return to her writing. You hear yourself trotting out the writing advice you've heard throughout the years and which you, yourself, could use. You wonder what business you have offering writing advice to someone who's more than double your age and who, all her life, has worked with, and around, books. When you tell her you will be flying out in a couple of days, it is with a disappointed look that she bids you goodbye, but not before she points out, with barely-concealed urgency, the bookshops and coffee shops to visit before you leave. When you mention record shops, she points one out. Unbeknownst to her, the owner of the record shop is married to a Kenyan woman, and when you go down the stairs and tumble into this underground haven of sonic delight, you spend a lovely hour going on and on about 80s African music with someone whose enthusiasm belies the fact that he has never visited the continent. # Now that your reading is done, you allow yourself to have fun. You wonder if it's because your accent doesn't stand out as much, and that you spend as much time deciphering the Irish brogue as other writers try to understand your Kenyan English. You all have choice words about the British Empire, imperialism, the war in Ukraine. You redeem your drink tokens alongside the other writers and sit around a table and talk. In a corner of the room, a folk musician sits with a guitar, scoring the night with sparse chords about loneliness, lost love. You feel right at home in this famous brand of Irish sentimentality. A few writers sit away from the laughing group and brood. They sip and close their eyes. It's cold outside, but you're all sweating, taking off scarves and jackets and sweaters the more you laugh. You talk about writing rituals, Prince Charles III, Sally Rooney, Northern Ireland, Derry Girls, Trinity College, and, briefly, HBO's Succession when one of the writers is delighted you know how to pronounce Siobhan. You have your very first crush on a white man. Of course, he had to be Irish, your friend replies with a laughing emoji when you text her. # During mealtimes at the hotel, you’ve taken to looking for the tables that are tucked far away. You want to look at your phone and scroll away in chatter-free bliss. Some of the other writers, bless them, seem to notice and keep away, nodding and smiling every time your eyes meet. One morning at breakfast, you realize you've not spotted any other black person at the hotel. You feel guilty for only noticing this on the last day. But the guilt gives way to something like relief. Yes, you're the only black person at the hotel. Yes, you're the only black person at the festival. But contrary to how you often feel in America, you don't have the sensation of sticking out, you don't feel that a simple conversation will out you for being a different sort of black person altogether. # On the last day of the festival, after the first session of readings, you rush back to the hotel to grab dinner. The dining room is sparsely occupied, and most of the diners are elderly. The paneled walls and the perfectly set tables bring to mind a British pomposity that makes you smile. The time difference between Cork and Nairobi is only two hours. This makes it easier to keep up with Kenyan Twitter and Instagram in real time compared to when you're in America. You haven't been on social media all day. The idea is to find a table where you can scroll away in quiet bliss. You find one at the far end. You sit with your back to the room. The table has used utensils from the previous diners. On the top-right corner of the room, a TV shows a football game. Directly under the TV, a table with an elderly couple, sipping what appears to be the last of their drinks. You keep your head down, waiting for the maître d' to greet you and take your order. You've been lost in your phone for a while when you feel a shift in the air. You look over to the couple on your right. They keep sending looks towards you, and you keep looking back surreptitiously. At one point, you and the woman look at each other at the same time and send each other a smile. You are reassured. You return to your phone. Someone on your Instagram stories is giving a blow-by-blow account of a developing story about a Kenyan socialite. You're chuckling, you’re ignoring emails, you’re waiting to get dinner. After the reading, you hope you and the other writers will sample a little of the Cork nightlife. You even look forward to stealing a few moments with your crush. Your attention is drawn to your right again. Now, there are three: one of the waitresses has joined them. They are all facing your table. The waitress nods as the woman talks. On the older woman's face is a look you've seen often on your own mother's when she's giving someone a good scolding. You take out your earphones. The young woman—she couldn't be a day older than eighteen years—walks over to you, her cheeks flushed. You look over to the couple and they are shaking their heads, frowning. "Just unacceptable," the man says, still shaking his head. His voice attracts the attention of the other diners, and now looks are being directed towards you. The young woman, now appearing even younger than you'd thought her to be, starts to clear your table. You can feel the other diners' eyes. She is apologizing. Her eyes are watery. You feel a lump growing in your throat. You pinch the underside of your right arm, an old trick pilfered from a TV show, to forestall the tears you feel coming. You're not sure who you resent more: the restaurant staff who took too long to clear your table and get your order, or the elderly couple who pointed out the slight and turned you into a thing to be pitied. The waitress apologizes again. "Hey, it's okay," you hear yourself say. She nods rapidly, a smile on her face. Then, once she's stacked the utensils on her arms, she asks in a chirpy voice: "Did one of us seat you here?" The shift from the teary eyes to chirpiness is remarkable. "No," you say to her, haltingly. "I just came and sat here."  "I'm really sorry, I didn't see you, you had your back turned..." You tell her it's completely okay. That you only sat there because you wanted some privacy. It turns out you'd been waiting for half an hour. She takes your order. Your drink comes soon after she leaves. And then a couple of minutes after that, another server rushes to you with your plate of salmon, mashed potatoes, and a few celery sticks. You avoid looking at the couple on your right. You down the drink and then tackle the fish. The server returns to ask how you're finding the meal. You have about twenty minutes before the reading, so you ask for a cocktail. As you wait, the couple gets up. They walk to your table. "You had been waiting for too long on a dirty table," the woman says, as if you had only just come to the scene yourself. "We just couldn't sit there and watch that happen to you." You nod and smile, wishing that you had your cocktail already. Then the man, in a quiet conversational tone, tells you that they are English tourists. That he had long known of his Irish ancestry and that they were finally taking this trip to see some of his ancestors' burial grounds. This moves you. You feel bad about being previously annoyed. "And where are you from?" the woman asks you.  "Kenya,” you say. "Oh," she exclaims, clutching her husband's arm. She starts to laugh. "She grew up in Kenya," the man explains, chuckling.  The woman shakes her head slowly, as if she can’t believe the sheer coincidence of it all. "But that's before we got married," the man continues, taking on the role of his wife's interpreter. "She's still got some family there. Her father was sent there as an administrator with the British government. The 40s, it may have been? But that's a long, long time ago, I'm sure you were not born." "Oh no," you say, chuckling. "Kenya wasn't even a country then." He's laughing. You're laughing. You're all laughing. Out of the corner of your eye, you see the waitress from before, going to the kitchen with a stack of plates on her arm. You get up from the table. You've decided to give up on the cocktail. In a single file, the three of you walk to the cashier. And there you all stand, waiting to settle your bills. ### Torch Literary Arts  is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.

Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in the North American Review, The Fire Inside Anthology Volume Phillips is completing her first full manuscript of poetry. saint handyman   damn us all for never praisin

Her poetry is published or forthcoming in Callaloo , The Columbia Review , Poet Lore , and elsewhere.

Mofiyinfoluwa O. is a Nigerian writer living between Lagos and London. Her work is concerned with the interior of African|Black womanhood. She is a graduate of the Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program and The Founder of The Abebi AfroNonfiction Foundation. Her work has appeared in Guernica , Black Warrior Review , Variant Lit , Pleiades , Ploughshares, and elsewhere. Her work has been selected as a Best American Essay Notable Entry (2022) and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is currently at work on her debut memoir interrogating the body, soul, spirit, and their relationship with desire. Victoria Island Blues We have always known that the land bears witness. That it watches. A thing does not need to have eyes to see. We are an expanse of land in the heart of Victoria Island; 2.7 acres of lush sprawling greenery, only a leap from Ozumba Mbadiwe Avenue, only a leap from the mouth of the ocean. We have a thousand tiny corners where many dangerous and beautiful things happen. Muri Okunola Park is what they call us, but we know that we are more than just a park, more than green grass trampled underneath eager feet, more than just a place. Even then. A place can behold the clumsy knees of a teenage girl become the sturdy legs of a woman. A place can remain unchanged – dark green bars forming an iron fence, pillars of marble scattered across the field, a black gate that holds many secrets – as it watches a young girl transform every single time she sets foot on the body of our premises. There is no way to tell the story of M becoming a woman in Lagos without mentioning us. Long before the tendrils of womanhood even find her, we see her. It is a rare and beautiful thing to bear witness to the unfurling of a flower – to watch tentative petals reveal themselves in glorious splendor. And what is a glorious tale if it is not told? What is the use of all that beauty, all that danger, all that rage, if we keep it to ourselves?   6th August 2016.  The first time she sets foot on these grounds, M. is a seventeen-year-old girl desperate to be desired. You couldn’t see it, though. Unless you looked beyond her carefully manufactured confidence, her stellar grades, her mouth always moving, always distracting, always performing. But if you looked past all that, past the white off shoulder top she chose to wear that day for its ability to hide her entire midriff, past the funny-looking eyebrows she took hours to pencil in and conceal, past the constant fidgeting to make sure she looked fine – you would only see a young darkskinned girl attending a music festival. Lucid Lemons – the hottest hub for young creatives – is hosting a live show for alté musicians, and her sister, ear to the ground on the scene, had told her to be there. Just a few weeks ago, the tailor she met on the scene of her filmmaker cousin’s movie made her a pair of ankara shorts. Red flowers, yellow circles with splotches of white. The perfect fit to show some thigh whilst being high-waisted enough to keep her belly (oh the great belly) out of sight. That day, she is in the midst of a very delicate equation she is trying to balance: how to hide herself, whilst still showing enough skin to draw boys’ eyes, to make them see that although she is fat, although the inside of her thighs are almost black with the heat of constant friction, although she is terrible at makeup, she is still beautiful, still deserving of their eyes, their mouths, their hands. Still, she dances. With her feet in dainty white sandals in the late August air, she sways. Only a few weeks ago, she graduated from Olashore International School, and in the next few weeks she is off to Durham University in the cold cold North of England to study law. Oh, how she dreams of being a lawyer. All those blazers hiding her fat, flabby arms. All those long-sleeved shirts to conceal shoulders. All that brilliance she will radiate. She is certain, unshakably resolved to be a lawyer. And she has the brains for it. Her WAEC results are out any day now and she cannot wait for the rush of validation. Yes, there may be no boys who find her attractive enough to come and say hello, but the litany of As littering her report card will warrant the praise of her family, her teachers, and all her friends. Her iPhone 6 buzzes in her little white purse. Her English teacher, Mrs Emezue, is calling. Slightly confused, she picks up her phone, and a frantic, excited voice blares through the speakers ‘ Fiyin! Fiyin! WAEC results are out! Send me your details now! Let me check for you .' Squealing and jumping, the girl reels off the registration number she had memorized waiting for this exact moment. With bated breath, she waits as her teacher fishes out the results. A few minutes pass, and Mrs Emezue begins to scream with joy: ‘ My girl! My girl! My girl! All As and only one B (of course, she had a B in math) ! You did it! All As and one B!’  Her face cracks into a smile so big, it battles the setting sun for radiance. We see her then, realizing her own power, forgetting the boys for a moment, utterly pleased with herself. The sun will set, and Odunsi The Engine will croon ‘you’re my desire, gone around the world just to find her, omoge wa gbe mi saya’  and she will sing out those lyrics with reckless abandon – her voice lifting towards the heavens like smokefire, the voice of a girl trying so very hard to be enough for herself.    24th December 2017. Her skirt is short, so short that her thighs sparkle in their nakedness under the starless Lagos night. The skirt – faux leather embroidered with small red, green, and blue flowers – was bought with her mother in the New Look on Oxford Street nine months ago when she turned eighteen. An adult. And her body is starting to show it. The skin of her thighs is rubbed down with whipped shea butter and coconut oil, gleaming with a vengeance, pollen waiting for the touch of bees. Her top is deep red, baring her shoulders with waterfall sleeves that ripple in the evening breeze. An airy, round, perfect afro crowns her head steadfastly, and a velvet choker, encrusted with many silver hearts sparkling one to another – much like choreographed constellations – wraps the expanse of her neck. Gone is that shy and fidgeting girl of many moons ago. This is the M that has come into the knowledge of her beauty. She has spent the last many months shopping for clothes that fit her frame, shedding all that deadweight of insecurity, standing in front of her camera day after day, photograph after photograph, teaching her brain to look at her body and call it beautiful. If you check her camera roll, you will find many nude pictures, mostly in black and white; she has been cartographing the expanse of her body, rolls of flesh, a sprawling belly, stretch marks across the entire width of her back. She has studied her body like ancient scripture. Her endeavors have been fruitful. So fruitful, in fact, that in the months that have passed since we last saw her, she has obtained a lover that she obsesses over in a near-feral manner. He is sitting beside her now on the raffia mats spread across the park, the smell of chicken barbecue and burning herb dancing through the air as Bez is stringing a guitar and crooning seductively; his voice traveling over them in enchanting waves. In that moment, her gloss-coated lips spill open with laughter, time and time again, as the hands of the clock move nearer and nearer to midnight. No call from her mother. The freedom is delicious. And she is feasting fat on every single bite. D, beside her, reaches out to cover her shoulder with his arm and she lets him, lets herself feel the weight of a man settle on her, and she decides she likes it. On those mats, she is a budding flower unaware of just how bright her bloom will be.  28th of December 2019. Her belly is full of gin when she arrives at our gates. Beefeater to be exact. Straight from the bottle, no mixer, no chaser. No, she’s the one being chased tonight – those wide hips encased in deep red, the smooth brown of her shoulders bared to the night sky, lips a pulsing red sea perfect for drowning. Just a few minutes ago, she was at a wedding where men were tripping over themselves to get her phone number as she weaves and bobs between them with the ease of a woman who now knows how to handle men. The Uber ride from Elegushi to Victoria Island is only fifteen minutes, and in that time, she peels herself out of a sinfully tight black dress into an equally (if not more) sinfully tight red jumpsuit. She surprises herself with how deft she has become at navigating this city, this big and blooming life. Maybe there is  something about heartbreak that sharpens a woman’s senses. She would know. Five months ago, D said he could no longer love her. And she wept. Worried herself sick with errant thoughts of insufficiency. Wept some more. And then one day, tired of wallowing, she reached out to a man and swallowed him whole, and the tears ceased. Discovering this formula, the girl has developed a ravenous appetite for dick and alcohol (both in surplus in Lagos every December), perfected the calibration, and when she sets her feet on Muri Okunola Park that night, she is ready. Red, blue, and pink lights strobe from every corner of the park, and the air is thick with the sweat of bodies, the heady scent of too many joints burning at the same time, and music so loud it reverberates through her entire body as she meanders her way to the front of the stage where Show Dem Camp is booming their music. When Tec calls out to the audience for girls who are ready to come dance on stage, she does not hesitate. The security man hoists her up like she doesn’t weigh 95kg, and in that moment, she feels light as air as her gold-sandaled feet land on the stage. Her eyes are lined with laali, auburn and blond braids piled in the perfect ponytail. The bass is jumping and she begins to whine her waist, hips brushing from side to side, arms lifted in bliss as that jumpsuit cleaves to every inch of her body, its thin straps digging into the flesh of her shoulders as the fabric strains to contain the euphoria pouring from her. She sways from side to side, running her hands along the grooves of her belly, sticking her tongue out, grinning endlessly as she is being carried by the music to a very magical place. The energy is galactic, hundreds of bodies vibrating and chanting lyrics backed by the most electric live band as the stage is beamed in seething rays of red and blue and pink. There she is in this galaxy, entirely untethered, sensual and free - a woman who is dancing like she knows exactly what her body can do. If you look closely, you will see the back of the jumpsuit rides low enough to reveal the rolls of flesh she once desperately kept hidden. Now, she does not give a fuck. In that moment, nothing matters, not even the useless lair she wants so desperately to fuck, the one who has called her phone seven times now, not even him. She is ascendant, moving with the air, moving the body she taught herself to love, moving it with ease and gladness. On that stage, in front of all those people, in front of us, underneath the starless Lagos night, M. celebrates herself, and what we see is a woman ready to feast on herself, knowing she will be satisfied.  24th December 2021. They are both drenched in sweat when we see them, and god are they a sight to behold. He; head full of hair, a pink floral shirt with one too many buttons undone, a silver necklace shimmering in the darkness of night, and black jeans so tight, they could be another layer of skin. She – our girlwomanmagicbeing – is clad in an emerald green bralette, complete with ropes that criss-cross the skin between her breasts, free and unbound with nipples peeking to greet the night air. Her burgundy trousers, tight at the waist and flared towards her feet, have slipped much lower than their initial placement to reveal her waistbeads – all ten of them; red, gold, blue, and bronze, glittering and seductive in the midnight hue. It is another December and another Show Dem Camp concert, but this time she is not on stage. This time she is in the arms of a lover who sees her entirely, a lover her body calls siren-like, and he answers every single time. Their faces are split in these ethereal smiles as they exchange a tiny gold flask between themselves. No one else knows, but just before they arrived here, in a small hotel room off Ozumba, they split a heart-shaped pill into two, each person slipping their half into heated mouths chased with cold Orijin. It hit in the middle of the show. Rays of heat deep from the core of their bodies began to radiate outwards, a kind of cosmic energy beaming from within. Now, the girl is chanting lyrics, engaged in a full-blown rap battle of one: CHOP LIFE CREW, JAIYE TIMES TWO, AFTER ROUND ONE, SHE WANT TATOO. The words tumble from her mouth with a volume she didn't even know she possessed, ebullient and loud as she bounces from one leg to another, everyone around her staring in a mixture of amusement and mild confusion. She does not care. From her small red purse, she retrieves a perfect rolled joint. Oh. This is new. Slinging it between her deep red fingernails, she lifts it to her mouth, flicks her neon lighter against its twisted tip, and takes a deep drag as her eyes flutter closed. She holds it within her, seconds passing before she releases the smoke skyward. Her movements, seamless with the ease of frequency. She does it again, the skin of her bare face supple with sweat, shining. There is a serene beauty to her in the way her entire body rejects the performance of perfection. She is not sucking in her belly, not fretting about the downward slope of her breasts, not concealing the bags underneath her eyes. She is just a girl in a park in the city she loves, getting high with the man she loves. It is all so simple. She lifts the joint to W’s mouth, placing it between his lips, feeding him as her fingers brush his bottom lip, warm and supple. He smiles at her from underneath his eyes. A look passes between them, and we know they will soon carry their bodies away from here to do what they hunger for. To speak a language only their bodies understand. Looking at them, you would only see a young couple having fun in Lagos on Christmas Eve. But if you looked closer, you would see a small fresh scar underneath her belly button, obscured by the beads. Her eyes are slits now, blurred by herb and drink, but just a few hours ago, they poured torrents because her body refused to allow itself to be taken by the man she wanted to give it to. At first, we conclude that wholeness can be an act, easy to put on in a jam-packed field in the middle of Victoria Island. But then we watch her even closer – the move of her hips, the way her eyes light up when her lover traces the skin at the base of her neck, the way she closes her eyes to soak up all that music, all that joy, all that magic – and we know that even broken things possess their own wholeness, a cacophony of healing to rage against the silence of suffering and our girl from all those years ago is still here, still bending, still shifting, still becoming. She walks out of the park that night, and we wrap our arms around her, rejoicing over resilience and beauty, rejoicing over all the ways a girl becomes a woman who fights to be alive and whole, enough for herself in every season. ### Torch Literary Arts  is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Click here to support Torch Literary Arts.

Her debut novel Good Morning, Love (Simon & Schuster, 2022) was featured by Joy the Baker and Katie Couric

My host mom and I had a wonderful relationship, but that Friday evening was the first time I had lied

Jones as the winner of Hub City Press’s BIPOC Poetry Reader Series Prize. Stewart-White’s work has been featured in Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Beloit Poetry Journal, Callaloo Her poem “Healing” was featured in the award-winning NAACP anthology This is the Honey, curated by New It was also selected by Sonia Sanchez as a winner of the Boston Review’s annual poetry prize.

She received an MFA in Poetry from New York University, and is currently at work on a poetry manuscript

Aline-Mwezi Niyonsenga is a third culture kid who’s allergic to place. She writes about migrant experiences with the help of a tornado auntie, lion goddess, immortal witch, the occasional ghost, etc. Her work has recently been published in Uncanny Magazine, Augur Magazine, Andromeda Spaceways, GigaNotoSaurus, Fantasy Magazine, and FIYAH Literary Magazine. It has also appeared in anthologies such as As the Earth Dreams: Black Canadian Speculative Stories and Africa Risen. You can find links to her works on her website: aline-mweziniyonsenga.com/ My Friend the Lord of the Forest Like her missing cousin had advised, Gabi focused on one thing over studying: making friends. This was easy. As soon as she landed in the grey iciness of a foreign autumn, in a flat city of sharp rectangular lines, Gabi joined the community association and attended its youth conference event. This was a good distraction from her cousin’s disappearance. She could pretend his messages from a month ago were sent just yesterday. Introduce yourself clearly. Enunciate. Ask people about themselves. They’ll immediately feel closer to you. People love to talk about themselves. Gabi had laughed at the advice. She had no trouble being social. Her cousin had pointed out that she had spent most of her life among family at home, among friends at school. She didn’t have enough practice with meeting new people—total strangers, her cousin had stressed. He had been the same before he studied abroad. He didn’t want her to make the same mistakes. “Channel your inner Lord of the Forest,” her cousin had said. “Strong. Confident. Like you rule over trees.” Gabi had laughed. Her cousin would always make silly references to his favourite made-up character: the Lord of the Forest, both beast and mighty king. Gabi didn’t understand her cousin’s admiration, but the silliness of the memory was a good distraction. At the youth conference, Gabi ignored her freezing wet flats and laughed with other smartly blazered young people. “We haven’t seen you before. Where are you from?” was the common refrain. Questions of location, high school, university flew across the room. Common points were highly sought after. Once found, shoulders loosened. Then a man leaned close to Gabi’s ear and said, “You’re Ingabire, right? I know your cousin, _____.” Ice rubbed down her neck. Her nametag said Gabi. Not once had she introduced herself in full. “Oh, really? My cousin?” She hadn’t told this man where she was from. Her brain struggled to place him as the nerves in her chest squirmed with wary confusion. He wasn’t in the family group chat. Her cousin’s name was no longer mentioned there because who knew who was watching. “Yes, I read his article,” the man said. He didn’t introduce himself. “I study information technology. Where do you study?” “I’m job hunting,” Gabi said, and waved at someone behind him. She made three rounds around the velvety room, feet burning. In the bathroom she sobbed with her fist in her mouth. She grabbed her coat and left. Outside, a warm wind surprised Gabi, followed by a fleeting shadow. A big dog running past, Gabi reasoned. A big, big dog. Strangest of all was the smell of wet soil that lingered. # After the conference encounter, Gabi spiraled. Normal guests would come to her aunt’s house, but their questions unnerved her. Who knew who was watching. “I’m sorry about your cousin,” one friend of a friend said. Gabi avoided further visits. She hibernated at school throughout the winter, morning to night, weekends at the library. She spoke to no one. Would they ask about her cousin? Would they watch her every move? Would they report back? Her cousin was still missing. Him and his obsession with the Lord of the Forest. Gabi’s cousin was obsessed with one umugani he heard in primary school: the story of Sebwugugu. It was about a foolish husband and the poor wife who bore with his foolishness until he got himself killed. A ferocious beast killed him, so his wife kept house with an axe in her hand, ready to kill it should it come back. One day someone did knock at her door, introducing himself as the Lord of the Forest. Go away, beast! the wife said. I know who you truly are. Gabi didn’t remember how her cousin described it, but the Lord of the Forest was able to show that he was a noble individual who ruled justly over the forest and its creatures. I cannot ignore a woman alone. I simply wished to see you well. He might have left her gifts or the help of ten enchanted ploughs to help her through her harvest, but eventually she trusted him as someone more dependable than her husband, and they married. At this point, Gabi would snort, “That’s not even the right version of the story. A beast killed her husband, yes, but then the woman killed it, and the chief of a nearby village found out and rewarded her for getting rid of something that had killed his people. She married the chief.” “I’m asking you to imagine,” her cousin would say. “Imagine if the chief and the beast were the same. Then the Lord of the Forest would be like a metaphor for protecting our trees.” Her cousin had studied environmental science. “Imagine if he was still around to protect forests today. There’d be less deforestation, less bandits and poachers hiding in there.” Her cousin had written an article—a personal essay, he called it—about the Lord of the Forest and forest conservation, the dangers of overdevelopment, all in an effort to promote an equal exchange with nature, and pay it respect. Five months had passed since Gabi’s cousin went missing. Four months since her arrival abroad. The snow thawed. Her aunt must have complained, because her mother was urging her to say hi to so-and-so, to meet with so-and-so’s daughter, to show her face at parties. To pretend everything was normal for who knows who is watching. So when Gabi saw a poster for a student club, she decided to join. # Gabi joined Sanctuary Club on a sunny Monday afternoon. A place where everyone is welcome. You can make friends, or you can enjoy silence together. Arts and crafts activities are provided. The sun was setting later and later every day, making Gabi wonder if one day it wouldn’t set at all. The colourful people of Sanctuary Club were even stranger, with their dyed hair and clinking bracelets, studying degrees her parents would never pay for her to study. Their club president was a taller-than-tall man named Murugo, who smelled like Vaseline and eucalyptus. For the first time in months, Gabi felt she was at home. Murugo played an RnB playlist mixed with amapiano and old songs from home, while the club crocheted or glued magazine clippings to pieces of construction paper. Gabi did not know how to crochet, so she picked up a pair of scissors and an old student magazine. Murugo sat across from her. Up close, she could smell wet soil. It reminded her of the southern bamboo forest back home, where it was said Ngunda fell. She thought of swaying bamboo shoots. She cut a whole background of them off the magazine and glued it onto a blue piece of paper. “Where are you from?” she asked Murugo. “Gisenyi. I came here a long time ago, in the 90s.” He didn’t look that much older than her. He must have been a baby. They skirted around the topic of genocide and spoke instead about school and what was missing on the playlist. Murugo was also studying environmental science. Maybe because Murugo grew up outside, Gabi felt safe to speak about her own two siblings, her extended family, but nothing about her missing cousin. An old poet crowed over the Bluetooth stereo. Gabi snorted. “You’re like a grandpa.” But the steady drumming and keening words made her eyes water. Her cousin loved this song. Murugo had no siblings. No parents. Gabi bit the inside of her cheek upon hearing it. At least her cousin was not dead. He couldn’t be. Her first piece of art was a forest of smiling faces, the words rest and family big across the middle. The word rest reminded her of death, so she ripped that part off the artwork, crumpled the whole thing, and threw it away. No one questioned this. # Murugo hummed while he worked, a habit that reminded Gabi of her cousin, and for a moment she felt safe in the knowledge that somewhere somehow her cousin was humming. He was safe. The club didn’t have an end time, but Gabi left before sunset. When she left the club room for the day, Murugo’s hum would carry into the hallway, following her all the way outside like a low buzzing in her eardrums. Her cousin was safe. He must be. # Once during club time, Murugo stretched his arms up and yawned. His shirt was cropped so Gabi saw the scar on his belly, like the bullet scar her grandfather had, and suddenly she could see the bullet holes under the kitchen window in her grandparents’ house. Her cousin’s article mentioned how her grandparents had never found out who was shooting. Was it bandits? The old regime? One thing was for sure: they had come from the north. The article could have had to do with his disappearance. That’s what her family thought. He had been on his way to renew his passport and didn’t come back. The article had to be the reason, but sometimes there are no reasons. Sometimes family just disappears, and the people who took them never tell you why. Tears welled up in Gabi’s eyes, dripping onto the words family, lost, and found. She left the clubroom. Murugo followed her. “I’m just going to the bathroom,” she said. “I know a good place to cry.” He led her up a set of stairs, and more stairs, until they reached a door that pushed onto a roof alive with whirring sounds. Fans spun at the corners of a verdant paradise of potted ferns that formed a square around a swinging bench adorned with vines. The air was warm like home. The plants were outstretched arms like home. Gabi’s tears fell like so much rain back home. Murugo pointed to the swinging bench and said he’d be right back. Gabi let herself sink into the bench’s plush cushions. She wrung her tears out, wailing just loud enough to blend with the chorus of fans and mechanical whirs surrounding the garden. It all became a hum of noise, steady like a lullaby. Gabi woke to a tap on her shoulder. Murugo handed her a wad of tissues and she blew her nose. She hugged a cushion while he watered the plants with a plastic can. He scratched his belly, where the scar was. “How did you get shot?” she asked. Murugo looked out at the pinking sky. It was almost sunset already. “Bandits.” Of course. “My cousin is missing.” Gabi bit the inside of her lip to steady it. “They want to hold a funeral for him.” It hadn’t been a year yet, but did his family want to wait that long? One year would be agony for them, unspeakable for him. Better to believe he was dead. It was eight months since his disappearance. Murugo wrapped an arm around her shoulder, and she leaned into him. As the sky blued, his arm warmed like fur. # “I remember the forest,” Murugo said. “It was vast back then. I’d climb the tallest tree and look out at everything. It smelled like damp leaves, like fresh oxygen, like soil. There were so many birds back then. And the mountain gorillas. They were many. I remember that white woman would be around them a lot. That was when the forest was smelling more and more like gunpowder, more like diesel. I heard more gunshots, people who didn’t belong running around. People fleeing.” Gabi tuned in around the mention of gunshots. “You remember all that?” He didn’t look older than thirty. He must have been a child. “I had to flee in the end.” Their silence skirted around war again, and the snip-snip of scissors carried them through the afternoon. Gabi glued a forest scene again. It had a monkey (she couldn’t find gorillas), birds, and a man with darker skin than Murugo. The only word she cut out was home. # Murugo announced he was travelling for a few months. The new club president was a pale girl with longish teeth. Good-bye was a brief hug and a promise to exchange song recommendations. Gabi swallowed her loneliness and redoubled her focus on her studies. One time she went up to the roof to cry, but the door was locked. Through the fogged-up window she saw grey shapes, like sleeping beasts in the gloom, and she remembered dozing on Murugo’s shoulder, how it had warmed like fur. “I promise you. Your cousin will be found,” he’d said. Gabi had chuckled. “You can’t promise that.” “I simply wish to see you well.” That day, Gabi left the clubroom after sunset. As she walked down the hall, noise exploded from the clubroom. Laughter morphed into barking. Shouts became howls. And there was a new smell, like wet soil, the same smell from the night at the youth conference, now coming from the room. Gabi walked away fast, following an instinct against trouble. The smell of wet soil lingered in her nostrils, following her all the way home. A shadow slipped under the streetlights. A big dog running past. A big, big dog. # Gabi ditched Sanctuary Club to form a study group with two people she met at a party her aunt dragged her to. They became fast friends. Their taste in music was fresh, not like Murugo’s grandpa's taste. She joked about this with her new friends. They teased her about how she might like him. The funeral was postponed. Gabi exhaled then remembered it didn’t mean her cousin was any less missing. She forgot how to inhale and spent the next few weeks relearning how. A second time she went up to the roof, but it was bare. The whirring came from generators, no fans, only a cold wind, reminding her of the day she first set foot on this strange country. It was supposed to be a new start, distance from her cousin’s disappearance, but the fact of his absence haunted her still. Her breath stuck in her throat and stayed there through winter. She holed up in library study rooms, this time with people she could laugh with. Her throat loosened just a little. A year and a half since her cousin went missing. She learned to breathe around the absence clogging her throat. A third time she went up to the roof to cry, but the door was locked. The window was too dirty to see through. It shone like the white haze of a winter storm. This time Gabi sank against the door. Was it even the right door? Had the verdant garden been a dream? Her phone vibrated. She ignored it. Ten missed calls passed from her mother. Gabi rubbed her eyes dry and called back, both wishing for and dreading the moment her mother picked up. “Gabi,” her mother sniffled. She didn’t like that tone. Gabi reached for the locked door behind her. She yanked on its handle, as if it might help her escape. “Is he dead?” Gabi asked. The lock clicked, a clear sound in the trembling silence. Gabi tumbled onto the roof. The white haze broke into golden sunlight over the verdant garden, alive again with potted ferns arranged in a square around its creaking swing. Vines wrapped around the swing, and Gabi pulled on one of its leaves as she sat on the swing’s cushions. The smell of wet soil filled her nostrils. “Your cousin is back,” her mother said. “Kasha is back.” Gabi’s throat loosened into a squeak. “Alive?” The sound of a hum grew deeper than the whirring fans. Gabi lowered her phone to listen, checking behind her. A fleeting shadow blinked past. A dog running. A big, big dog. “Gabi?” Her mother’s voice faintly bleated through her fingers. “Are you there?” Water poured from a plastic can, showering the ferns in the garden. Gabi did not have to see the face that did it. She knew who it truly was. “Murugo?” The air was wet soil, the smell of home. Her cousin was home, but the Lord of the Forest was not. ### Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.