HUMANS & BULLETS & PERIL

By Njikonye Charles

                                                                                                                             isn't terrorism truly as senseless as rape?

a flash of bulletproof vests & body thronged spaces slaps my mind, & my thoughts eject themselves like cassettes; an Afghanistan fellow bearing the same pair of kidneys as me, same December count on earth as me—crumble into tomb songs at the lodging of two bullets in his body. one bullet crafts a tent from his heart skins & fattens, soaking his young blood. the other hollows his cerebrum, punctures his memories, & it oozes onto his blood-reddened earth, making faded nostalgic holograms of which he folds a paper into an aeroplane, & frees it to float the air. this boy wanted to be a pilot. now, his soul will he pilot into the jaws of 

the afterlife. & here in Nigeria, mother brings supper to me as I sat, lunging my body into the viper mouth of the news playing on the TV. as the news unboxed—it was Sunday today, & a busload of worshippers never made it to church. they were attacked, massacred by unknown gunmen as the news outlets in Nigeria had come to call them. & my best friend's father got rinsed by death in a bomb blast at a park. the newscaster says: 60 persons lost their lives in an explosion. so I ask, what was the number of my best friend's father among the victims, the 60 unfortunate? was his lifeless body the 37th added to the tally? or was it the 50th, 43rd, the 4th? or was his body colouring into the sand under 2 other bodies, just to be found the next day & counted as the 63rd? you see, terrorism is as senseless as rape, bending a man's whole existence into mere digits.

Writer's Biography

Njikonye Charles (he/him) is a writer & poet from Umuahia, Nigeria. His works have appeared in Eremite Poetry, NantyGreens, Last Girls Club, Poetry Column-NND, and many others. He is interested in technology & medicine.