I have never been to Ọzụbụlụ,
but I have a friend from the town.
He said there are a few makeshifts here and there,
where men gather in the evenings and play draughts.
Cigarettes and alcohol, just like most places,
wrestle with the air in the corners of the town.
And a motel where sweats are traded stands at its border.
My friend has lived in this town all his life,
and worked as a vulcanizer until university happened.
On August 6, 2017, armed men invaded St. Philip’s
Catholic Church in Ọzụbụlụ during a Sunday service
and shot dead fifteen worshippers; left many injured.
Bodies were reconfigured with openings; some brought
down halfway through their run for a cover;
some brought down on the church’s altar, their blood
pooling at the base where the crucifix was stationed;
a child was caught under a pile of chairs, and meters away
from her body was her arm clinching a teddy bear.
These were people with dreams and plans.
The following day, the news stations kept silent,
as if nothing had happened anywhere.
This country has become heavier than a ship’s anchor and its chains;
its mouth reeks of rotten whales; its wings are perforated with negligence.
I love this country, but it does not love me back.
I walk toward it, yet it keeps running from me.
This poem is an excerpt from The Naming, published by Nebraska Press (2025).
The Naming explores the movements, excesses, and extremes of existing as a postmodern individual, connecting these experiences to ancestry. The poems in this collection examine the various ways one remains tied to their ancestors by reimagining memories, history, homesteads, migration, and the intersections of the past, present, and possible futures. Through this exploration, the collection seeks to rebuild a world that doesn’t merely replicate realities but reinvents, enshrines, and restories them.