Q3. How Do You Measure Your Size of Sleep?

By Israel Okonji

See, look over your shoulders— fix      your gaze
through this calling window; when, last did you
see the ambiguity of turbulence? in my country,
you could see a strong wind blowing: you could
see a mass of turbulence that outgrew the wind
so much the wind rather floated with the warmth
of the birds it tells the convo between the ammos
and the bodies of women and children to. gravity
opened its mouth, and i saw a man fall into it.
here, you could see through a window—
the scene opens through the fractal on my wall.
when has a bomb expressed itself openly in this
city last? o, you havenʼt heard a bomb speak? they
opened the mouth of the black machine, and it said,
i have no option, just die. in my country, heaven
becomes gray before you go inside it. look through
this window; canʼt you see a lady sending forth her
thighs to swallow the sound of the beating drums?
o, look this way— this boy, volleying his femurs
till he reached the bodega. look at the countryʼs flxg
in his backpocket. jeez, louise, are    gas stations this
silent here? i once was told that an expatriate carries
turpentine silence when a child of the flxg asks him
about his origin. if he speaks about it, he should carry
sugar on his tongue. wait, do the seats in the
parliament clash into themselves to form red
sounds like cymbals here, too? i am muslim. in my
country, the waves from the radio became the qibla;
my countryʼs name drowns inside a red light in the
news and breaks everybodyʼs shahada. i speak for the
voices of my children silenced in the matrix. i speak
for a quantity of sunlight screaming out the names
of the men, women, youth, children, that got
swallowed into my countryʼs ground in Taraba, or
the ones that saw a body of the firmament on the
soil of a bullet in Plateau. i speak for myself, too.
now, you can tell that i had  a good night rest in
your country— i did not hear one decibel from any
explosion that could fold a city into smoke. but
home is home until the plateaux of home molds
into the fangs of snakes. Ms. Jacobs, tell me, what
else do you want to hear? alright. next question.

Biography

Israel Okonji (He / Him) is a Southern Nigerian poetry, storytelling & music artist. He has been published/forthcoming in Brittle Paper, Bruiser Magazine, Midsummer Magazine, Wasteland Review, Juste Lit, The Milton Review, Hiraeth Zine, Garlic Press Lit, Poetry-as-promised Lit, & Querencia Pressʼ anthology. He listens to music ranging from Marvin Gaye to Elton John, Nas to Kendrick Lamar, Ne-Yo to Chris Brown, Rihanna to Adele, and Brymo to Made Kuti. He hopes to fulfill his dream of collecting records like Craig Kallman. Also, he hopes to own a bungalow housing cats and willow ptarmigans. He has a special place for Brit actress Emma Watson in his heart.