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SURVIVAL

1/9/2021

2 Comments

 
By Ugochukwu Damian Okpara
Originally Published in Cyber Smut (Guts Publishing, London 2020)
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Stress warning: The following contains material relating to mental health struggles and trauma in no particular order, which may be triggering to victims and survivors

  • in the club, you danced like fire, spilled your grief like gin, while i, in a room knotted my body into all rigid things to becloud my thirst for men.
 
  • fear knows how best to sit in a room, knows how to shrink until it ripples into your body.
​​
  • you danced & flickered like candlelight, tried so hard not to lean into a boy’s arms & mourn all the things eating queer boys up.​
  • you tried hard, because you could be another chijioke, whose bones now serve as maps to dead queer boys whose last prayers were ashes falling on burning tongues. or another ifediuto, gulped whole by disease, whose bones outlived his flesh on his dying bed devoid of the smell of antiseptics. how could he tell where drowning began? or me, who misread a blackmailer’s lips for a lover’s.

  • ​see, i am still shrinking while my nudes spread like pox on my facebook timeline.

  • you did not cuddle my sadness with me.

  • instead, you left to live in a club, because each time we see the morning sun sneak into our rooms like riflers, we bless the universe, for we now, are a miracle, a survived lynch.

  • but there you were dancing like it was your last night.
​
  • still, i know you were yearning to live, the way your eyes failed to gaze at the waist of boys twisting into a hunger you wanted to fill with your mouth.
2 Comments
Omole glory
6/9/2021 09:37:36 am

Actually, the way we view struggles differ.. It is the survival of the test, don't give up easily.. Just dance it away.. Thank you Dalian.. You're good, trust me❤

Reply
Funmilola
23/9/2021 08:49:32 pm

I like how the writer evokes feelings of empathy in the reader, drawing us to share in the struggle he faces especially as a queer person in the society. Especially the struggle of not differentiating who truly cares about him from who just wants to blackmail him.

I feel his pain of being betrayed with his nudes leaked on social media. too many have suffered pain at the hands of people they thought loved them.

But still, despite this all, the yearning and longingness to love and be loved prevails.

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  • Publications
    • Submit to Us
    • Nigerian Writers Database
    • Anthologies >
      • ETB Anthology
      • AEAnthology
      • WAD Anthology
      • CBS Anthology
      • 2020 Why I Write
      • 2019 Why I Write
    • Interviews
    • Book Reviews
  • Fellowships
    • Writing Fellowship
    • Advantage Program
    • Advancement Fellowship
  • Contests
    • Monthly Bookstore Gift-card
    • Annual Poetry Contest
    • SWAP >
      • SWAP 2022 Winners
      • SWAP 2021 Winner
      • SWAP 2020 Winner
  • SprinNG Lit
  • Donate
  • About
    • Annual Report
    • Quicklinks
    • Events >
      • 2023 MFA