to work, as in I missed my stop, too busy looking
up how to stop a fight, how to walk up to a monument
and scale him to size, how to be the kind of body that moves
like the girl on the bus who stepped in between a baby and a
man with a blowtorch. Either way, there is always a body
in front of the blowtorch. On the pucker-skinned road to Umueze,
you are the only one crying, my mother says
after a lurch pushes me out my skin, one inch closer
to the rifle in the front seat, jumping as well, maw ready
to swallow the ceiling. The soldier looks back while I make
my sobs silent in the middle and my mother smiles
through my tears. Much later, she tells me she was also scared,
that she has gotten more scared with age.
This does not bode well for me.
I imagine learning to eat a punch is akin to riding a bike,
lessons harkening back to middle school when I practiced falling,
challenged boys to races during recess, turned
myself upside down in a fast from any form of grounding.
Four years ago, I fell into traffic, flew even, and the brief gulp
of air I stole was not enough to recall any of the life I’d lived,
what I’d learnt. The pain did not set in until the mirror gifted me
with a busted lip and a torn up chin. I fended off my vanity by
holding hands with the dark. No, I kid. I walked
around with a swollen jaw to the tune of tire squeals.
ALEXANDRA NWIGWE is an engineer and writer based in San Francisco. She finds solace in making art with her hands and capturing her memories, whether through poetry or photography. Her photography has appeared in Lucky Jefferson, and her poetry has won MIT’s Isabelle Courtivron Award and has appeared in MIT’s Rune.