The winner of the June 2020 Giveaway is Aidenn.

You know how to become a colourful flower to attract your bees,
A foam in the hand to bring the moon on your face,
A deep of finger in rainbow to pick colours for your lips;
Red is for the boys whose bodies taste like yours,
and are ready to bend in any of your corner.
Yellow for those trying to touch the sunlight.
Black for devils who read the scripture of roadsides.
Blue for boys whose bodies are dog wagging their tails at lust.
Violent for those who may steal your body
and try to escape like a mosquito you caught sucking your mother’s blood.
Green, purple are not your colours/ they do not know how things are run/how to catch a body and burn it into the ashes of your wish/
The first time you paint a portrait, it was of two shadows— one fading into the body of the other,
while the other groans like a wall that caught the shape of two lovers.
Your mother once caught you painting at sixteen
And there she named you lost,
And started reading the book of grief you bought her.

​With blatant cynicism, he presents the book as a mock instruction manual for getting acquainted with the “Nigerian situation.” John holds a mirror to the mundane and weightier flaws of society in modern and easy-to-understand prose.

​Mama’s face flickered with a smile as she served an extra spoon of rice on my plate. Despite the dim light emanating from the lamp, I could see her eyes beaming with pride. Mama was a petite and dark-complexioned woman with beady eyes and a bright face. She usually assists Baba in the market to sell fresh vegetables to merchants from various cities, who would flock the marketplace to purchase goods at a much cheaper rate.
 
It was the night before the D-day; the day I would be leaving the village and starting a new life in the city. Aunty Shalewa had promised to sponsor my university education on the condition that I perform outstandingly in my examinations. Following my outstanding result that was released earlier this week, I had been planning towards relocating to Lagos state. 

freedom is a myth
& this home is a cage
we are birds nestled indoors
we sing and flock our feathers
but this home is a cage
for peacocks like us
the cage has been long-locked
by the bats and owls who
howls and scowls
as they squander our lots
the lock has been digested
in the bowels of a shark.
 
you want freedom?
so they release you to the air
but the air has been polluted
can you see? how your feathers fall off
one after another, soon you're
featherless and maybe fatherless
as freedom is a myth
& this home is a cage.