Fiction / Oluseye Fakinlede

:: Something happened in Udanre :: 

1.

The day Tola Tubo­sun was down­sized was a Tues­day. The day before, he spent what he described as qual­i­ty time with the branch man­ag­er, whom he took as an Egbon. Wole Thomp­son, his Egbon by choice, had assured him not to wor­ry that day before. But on that Tues­day, he went berserk when he could not log into his por­tal, and sub­se­quent­ly was called into the HR office that he had some­thing wait­ing for him. Some­thing or a let­ter? He scoffed, as he wiped a tear trick­ling down his cheru­bic face with the back of his palms before drop­ping the inter­com, out­right­ly ignor­ing the pity faces of his col­leagues in the mar­ket­ing sec­tion, even that of Sub­o­mi who sprawled on his chair cast­ing rue­ful eyes on his friend. 

He had always had pre­sen­ti­ments about Tues­days, espe­cial­ly if an event, a promise, an inter­view, a meet­ing, a date, an appoint­ment, just name it, falls on that day. So, he was not sur­prised but wound­ed up sad despite the spir­i­tu­al for­ti­fi­ca­tions he had received from his moth­er when he told her about con­clu­sions at the bank for down­siz­ing that month after their branch had been debriefed three months ago due to the loss accrued, espe­cial­ly that of Mar­keters who were not meet­ing their targets.

 He also had per­son­al­ly prayed against the hunch he felt, a rea­son why he went to see Mr. Wole, because he feared the pos­si­bil­i­ty of being retrenched from the bank since the deci­sion was to be tak­en on a Tuesday.

 “Egbon”, why must the deci­sions be tak­en tomor­row, Tues­day? Ha, Tues­day, he roared. 

“Tola, well, some things are super­sti­tious. Besides, if you believe them, you fuel the fears. And I can assure you that it might just be a threat for us to sit tight,” He said rolling his big body over plac­ing his arm on his shoul­der, while he gen­tly part­ed his soaked blue shirt. He smiled, straight­ened his gray check­ered tie, and hurled him to get to work, and stop being a worrywart. 

Five years ago, Tola came to Lagos just like most Niger­ian youths after their Nation­al Youth Ser­vice Corp Pro­gram in search of a green­er pas­ture. And after being on sev­er­al jobs; he became a con­tract staff at Eagle’s Bank 3 months ago, and had been on pro­ba­tion since as well as three of his colleagues. 

In his case, he had come from Eki­ti State, Erin-Ije­sha Eki­ti, and attend­ed the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ado Eki­ti, where he stud­ied Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion, and served at Okig­we, in Imo State. Hav­ing had a rough slice of life, he resolved one morn­ing, telling his aged moth­er, and his sis­ter that he would be going to Lagos, to look for bet­ter oppor­tu­ni­ties as none was forth­com­ing in Eki­ti. He added that he would be stay­ing with Lekan, a guy he met dur­ing the NYSC, and who was the Home Cell Coor­di­na­tor of their lodge. His moth­er could not dis­suade him from trav­el­ing to Lagos, nor the thought of putting up with the Lekan whom he had not seen for three years. She said, peo­ple change and most times, they change from bad to worse. Yet, this fell on deaf ears. 

Short stay­ing with Lekan had its rough edges, yet, it was a pro­peller of the good things to come for him. At his house, he was clothed, fed, and nur­tured. Three months after they lived togeth­er, Tola’s moth­er had a change of thought that there was still good­ness in the depraved world. It was Lekan that shared with him the Bank’s link, just like he helped him secure a job as a Sec­re­tary at a Neo­life, just like he helped him sub­mit his CV with the Chi­nese shoe fac­to­ry that had a strict rule of strip­ping up to one pant before entry or exit. And when the real­i­ties of his dream job seemed to fall apart like a two-dol­lar suit­case, he knew he rather runs home to Lekan who had not only become a true friend but his bur­den bearer. 

 Like a drenched foul, he dragged his feet along the busy Ogba Street, took some cut inside Ifako-Ogba, till he got to Pen cin­e­ma Agege, and sat at the front seat of the Keke Maruwa, head­ing towards Abule Egba to the two-bed­room apart­ment he shared with Lekan. Noth­ing made sense to him now, he felt a com­plete empti­ness, and his own body vivid­ly sticks. Wob­bled through the stairs, as if count­ing their num­bers, gave a cold smile to their smil­ing neigh­bor who always had an opin­ion about every mat­ter, and ignored her ques­tion of why he was home so soon and began telling the tale of their soon-to-fin­ish pre­paid meter unit. He unlocked the door and col­lapsed on the couch like a sawed tree. 

He checked his buzzing phone, swiped delete at a pop-up mes­sage from his office Egbon, swiped down the screen, and clicked on flight mood after he reject­ed two incom­ing calls. It was on the couch he curled up, till he fell asleep, and was awok­en by Lekan who took his head on his lap, and lis­tened as he whim­pered telling him all that hap­pened over and over again. Lekan on the oth­er hand, part­ed his back gen­tly, assur­ing him that all would be well. 

In the fol­low­ing weeks dis­card­ing his sui­ci­dal thoughts, he casu­al­ly began writ­ing, to avoid slid­ing into depres­sion. He first began shar­ing dai­ly quotes on Twit­ter, then it blos­somed into the cre­ation of a blog where he for the very first time decid­ed to write about places, the epi­cure­an places in Lagos he had vis­it­ed when he still had enough, and luck­i­ly, he still had the pic­tures he took with his DSLR Canon cam­era he bought on Konga. 

He wrote about the Ele­gushi beach as he vis­it­ed there yes­ter­day, and wrote about the Whis­per­ing Badal­gry palms, and all oth­er places of inter­est. Lekan also tried to light­en his mood by offer­ing to do his month­ly sub­scrip­tion, and he also promised to foot the house rent, believ­ing that the soon­est he would refund he like had always done. 

You are a good writer o, Tola. Lekan said one night read­ing through some­thing on his phone from his room. 

That’s flat­tery. Tola replied from the kitchen, with a mouth­ful of citrus. 

I am seri­ous. Lekan paused, wheeled the cur­tain open, stick­ing out his head, and showed him his phone rapid­ly scrolling till he got to the end of a page he was reading. 

Hey, you have been read­ing my blog. Tola replied with a shy smile point­ing the cit­rus at him, like an invi­ta­tion to suck on it. 

Yes…

See, see these comments…

Wow, I have got 16 already? 

Not just that, you also have 22 in another. 

You need to go pro­fes­sion­al with this, and launch your blog… Hmmm, buy a domain. And always reply to these bud­ding read­ers of yours. This also means you have to pro­vide them with gen­uine con­tent all the time. Lekan said. 

Well, I know a friend that can help with the domain thing. He con­tin­ued, though it will cost some mon­ey. But that’s not a bother. 

Why are you always doing this Lekan? Drop­ping the sliced orange on a tray and stood affixed with his head tilt­ed to the back like a non­plussed child. 

Do not resist help bro, you have stood for me back then, dur­ing ser­vice year remem­ber? He wrapped his hands around him, con­tort­ed his lips, and made a smack­ing sound on his cheek. 

You can write about most tourist sites in West­ern Nige­ria, begin­ning from Eki­ti, since you lived all your life there and you told me that you have gone to some sites there. You can also write about Ondo State. 

Ha! That state, I have nev­er been there o. Tola interjected. 

No way! Then you must. They have nice places, for exam­ple, the Idanre hills. 

By the way, it is my State. And I am trav­el­ing in a few weeks to Owo, to see Mama. You should come along, and tour. 

Short­ly after the kind words from Lekan, and after read­ing a pletho­ra of com­ments on his entire 12 blog posts, Tola began to sense a new­ness of pur­pose thus tripling his writ­ing efforts. He would sit on their din­ing set that only had two sets of chairs for hours punch­ing the keys of his key­board till mid­night doing noth­ing but writ­ing and cre­at­ing new posts or re-edit­ing his writ­ing plans. And when­ev­er he felt a writer’s block, he would slouch on the wood­en chair after he had placed a pil­low on it and fell asleep. Most times, it was Lekan’s soft touch that woke him up, plac­ing a cof­fee on the table or at times, ask­ing him to go to bed to stretch properly. 

2.    

The set day arrived for the duo’s trip to Owo. The two friends packed their belong­ings inside sep­a­rate trav­el box­es and hit the road to Osho­di, where some Ondo State bus­es await­ed. They sat on the pas­sen­gers’ seats very close to the trib­al-faced dri­ver who con­sis­tent­ly and irri­ta­bly told Lekan to remove his thigh that curved like a female’s from the gear until the two end­ed up in a hot ver­bal exchange. 

On get­ting to Owo, they found a bike man that took them straight to the com­pound of Lekan, and his mom wel­comed his friend whom she had only spo­ken to on phone with Pound­ed yam and a bowl of steam­ing egusi soup pre­pared by one of the young girls that always attend­ed to her. And at night, she spoke about her desire for Lekan to get mar­ried soon because age and health were no longer on her side; I want to car­ry your child, like your oth­er sis­ters. She said, end­ing the dis­cus­sion with a 30 min­utes prayer ses­sion thank­ing God for health, jour­ney mer­cies, and peti­tion­ing his ears to soft­en the mind of her son and bring him his life partner

Tola and Lekan on the oth­er while they were alone, alone in the room, real­ly could not sleep but were starred bla­tant­ly on the moon peep­ing through the cur­tains, and then on each oth­er before they were knocked out by heavy snores.

After three days in Owo, Tola began to surf the net for tourist sites in Ondo, after he had toured major land­marks in Owo and had writ­ten about them. He felt the hunch to vis­it Idanre hills since it is about an hour’s dri­ve from Owo town. He told Lekan about his solo plans to Idanre as and he hoped to spend two days in Idanre. Lekan did not both­er to dis­suade his solo plan nor did he attempt to sug­gest being his trav­el bud­dy, as he was sad­dled with the respon­si­bil­i­ty of tak­ing care of his moth­er whose nurse had an ear­li­er morn­ing and after­noon appoint­ment, while he had promised to watch over her till the fol­low­ing week. 

On Mon­day morn­ing, he left Iyere Owo, in a red salon car sit­ting in the passenger’s seat, his favorite trav­el spot. The dri­ver of this car had all the sto­ries, but his eyes were fixed on the rub­ber semi-clad ecce homo that kept dan­gling its head all through the jour­ney, and no soon­er did they arrive at Akure, the Cap­i­tal City of Ondo State. 

Since it was the first time vis­it­ing the State, he did put sev­er­al calls to Lekan who kept send­ing him inter­mit­tent texts and voice notes on where to take the next cab and final­ly told him joc­u­lar­ly to ask any­body since it was not Lagos where peo­ple hard­ly talk to strangers. 

He soon found his way to Idanre Garage, and after wait­ing for about some min­utes, the car was filled. 

They got to Idanre town, and when they alight­ed he hailed a bike man who on the jour­ney to the tourist site, told him he was ini­tial­ly from the East­ern Part of Nige­ria but had since been liv­ing in the town after his NYSC because he nev­er want­ed to return home since noth­ing was wait­ing for him. Short­ly after he dropped him at the foot of the hills’ rusty gate, they both exchanged con­tacts with the promise to call and saved his name as “John Idanre”, and wait­ed to see him ride away. 

3.    

The sur­round­ings of the hill were quite a big one despite its signs of sheer aban­don­ment. There was a mini-open bar built like a gaze­bo hous­ing six plas­tic chairs that were placed dis­joint­ed­ly. Besides this bar, were two lit­tle boys wear­ing only briefs, pick­ing up plas­tic cov­ers and bot­tles under­neath a tree. They moved up, and down, mut­ter­ing some dialec­tal ver­sion of the Yoru­ba lan­guage. And when they raised their heads, like preys who felt the hunch of an approach­ing preda­tor, Tola moved for­ward to calm the children’s ner­vous­ness or anx­i­ety with a wave of hands, and they glad­ly returned a sim­i­lar ges­ture with their bot­tle trea­sures clenched fists. And as he walked towards a cir­cu­lar shaped build­ing in front of him, the lit­tlest boy who had a rosary around his chub­by neck and a wide grin on his cheeks, took small steps for­wards, while scratch­ing his groins with his clenched fist of plas­tic trea­sures, and con­tin­ued to grin until it fad­ed away. 

As he made his way into the cir­cu­lar thatched-roof build­ing, he cleared his throat that had become dried, call­ing out hel­lo before a man rose from a camp bed, yawn­ing, and asked him how he would love to be helped. 

Good after­noon, Tola checked his wrist­watch, paused, and resumed again the greet­ings. Good morn­ing, he said again, rais­ing his eyes and meet­ing this man with the rarest blue eye he had ever seen. 

The man stretched his body again, plac­ing an arm on the door frame, yawned now but with the cov­er­ing of his back palm, and retort­ed morn­ing.  

Tola con­tin­ued. I was won­der­ing whom I can talk to. I would like to tour the hills, and… inter­rupt­ed by the sleepy man who had now adjust­ed his shirts, and offered him a seat. 

Sor­ry bros, you know that body no is fire­wood, hence why I dey sleep. He said. 

“My name is Oba, he stretched forth his arm for a hand­shake. I will be the tour guide here and the bar man­ag­er. So, you said you wan tour the hill? Well, I am the per­son, you can talk to and the mon­ey varies depend­ing on what exact­ly you wan do for this hill.” He said with­out a pause. 

How much is to tour? Tola asked, flip­ping his pause open, and wait­ing on a reply before bring­ing what­ev­er charges he might be billed. 

Na shiki­ni mon­ey, na 1k! Oba said laughing… 

Oh, a thou­sand naira. Tola retort­ed like a reecho. 

But I would like to spend some days in Idanre, at least to have a con­crete write-up for my blog. By the way, I am Tola, a blog­ger. He said, stand­ing up and stretch­ing forth his hands in a phat­ic way to Oba who was smil­ing all through as he was speaking. 

Nice meet­ing you, Mr. Tola. I guess you came from Lagos, and be rest assured that you would have a nice short stay in Idanre, but spend­ing time on the hills would cost you more, and the chalets are not in good con­di­tion. Oba replied now, no longer speak­ing in Pid­gin English. 

Tola burst into a peal of ran­corous laugh­ter that made him look embar­rassed after­ward. He had to be stu­pe­fied by the stand­ing fig­ure who had sud­den­ly switched from a usu­al street man­ner­ism to some curtsies. 

Par­don me. I should nev­er have done that, he said stand­ing up and wear­ing an apolo­getic face. I was just amazed that a while ago, you were speak­ing some pid­gin, and nev­er could have thought that you have some pol­ish tongue for Eng­lish. He said, wait­ing for a response. 

Well, that’s just the error most west­ern Nige­ri­ans make. Too many assump­tions that every­body under­stands this Eng­lish thing, so they blare it on anyone’s face, and that is com­mon with those bank people. 

Oba replied. 

Bank peo­ple? Did you know I used to work in a bank? Tola asked in a sur­prised tone. 

Haha, I would have guessed right, your Eng­lish will give you away, he said flir­ta­tious­ly. Shall we pro­ceed, we have got 682 steps to climb Mr. Tola. 

Please drop the Mr. I am sim­ple Tola. 

Okay, sim­ple Tola. He said joc­u­lar­ly, and Tola raised his eye­brow in a shy way, too dazed for a reply. 

The two end­ed up chok­ing on laugh­ter as they pro­ceed­ed to the end of a small rock, and began their jour­ney to the ancient city climb­ing the hued stone steps. 

At each rest­ing point, Oba told him sev­er­al sto­ries about the hills, act­ed some one-man cast dra­ma, and helped him to car­ry his waist back, so he could get some good shots of the hills, land­scape, and some of the left build­ings on the hills. 

You know, I would have loved you to wit­ness the Oro­sun fes­ti­val com­ing up next week in Idanre, and for­tu­nate­ly, it is done on this hill. Oba said to break an awk­ward silence that seemed to be exceed­ing for too long. 

Real­ly? Tell me about the Oro­sun fes­ti­val. Tola replied elatedly. 

It is a tra­di­tion­al fes­ti­val, a fes­ti­val of requests like I like to call, where the god­dess Oro­sun grants requests, and the tes­ti­monies prove that the god­dess Oro­sun, answers heart cries. See, point­ing to some small huts aloof. Those are the huts the chiefs camp in days before the fes­ti­val. See, they have start­ed clear­ing the thick­ets… He said. 

They stopped inside the old palace, where unclad effi­gies stood. This is a palace court­yard. Oba said, sit­ting on a block, and motioned that he writes on the walls like many vis­i­tors on the hills. 

Ummh, Oba, Tola asked after a short pause, could you take me to the Oro­sun shrine on this hill? I feel I will have a request to ask the goddess. 

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, Oba Replied, the Oro­sun does not have a shrine on top of the hill, except the Aworo’s hut, the Orosun’s priest’s hut, where he prays that the peti­tions of Oso­los and any oth­er wor­shipers are grant­ed sits and per­forms the rituals. 

I feel that is all I need­ed, the Aworo’s spot, and what else? Tola asked. 

Some kola nuts, some gin, and a pure heart I sup­posed. Oba replied. 

The Oro­sun is pow­er­ful but does not answer any­one with anger or filth. He added. 

I have no resent­ment in my heart, well they have spurred me to where I am today, and for filth, what does Oro­sun see as filth? He asked slur­ring his ques­tions like one struck with a revelation. 

See bros, he switched to his jerk­ing pid­gin. I no be a wor­ship­per. Paused and raised his head, eyes affixed at him. But I think if I were a child­less god­dess that now answers requests from the mun­dane whose taunts were what drove me away in anger? I will be biased to con­sid­er only the inge­nu­ity of the requests com­ing from peo­ple whose inter­nal lives have been a mess, and those who seek hap­pi­ness because they may not find it. 

“I will take you to the priest hut, you go make your requests.” He stood up, dust­ing his buttocks. 

Where we can get those items? Tola asked as they moved away from the old palace sites. 

You might just be lucky to see them there. Oba replied with a chuckle. 

4.    

It was now mid-day when they returned to the huts belong­ing to the chiefs mov­ing in quick short quick steps and stopped at the hut belong­ing to the Aworo, the priest of Orosun. 

Well, we have got to your spot man, enter, and make your wish. Oba snickered.

You know I should charge you more for this, he said affec­tion­ate­ly, rest­ing an arm on his left shoulder. 

There was a strange qui­et between the two men, but Tola jerked his shoul­der free­ing him­self from the man’s touch, and gen­tly pushed the wood­en door which squealed giv­ing them a free entry. 

Inside the hut was a small alter hav­ing a mir­ror direct­ly fac­ing the entry point. Besides the mir­ror were dif­fer­ent effi­gies and a very unique one which was the biggest, hav­ing a shape of a woman with point­ed breasts. At the foot of this altar was a tied cock with a col­lapsed comb. On the wall were stains of ani­mal blood smeared the walls, aside from the emp­ty bot­tles of gin, and a pack of gins bot­tles placed on a small pes­tle. Beside the pes­tle, was a bas­ket full of kola nuts, cov­ered by a fold­ed cane mat. 

Clears throat… Oba final­ly said, it seems you have got all your items here, say your prayers as I am run­ning out of time to return to the bar. After this, the quiet­ness in the room was restored but was dis­turbed by the mut­ter­ings of Tola, who had now stooped down, bit­ing on a kola nut he had bro­ken, and pour­ing some gin on the head of the biggest effi­gy with point­ed breasts. As it pour the gin, the liq­uid trick­led down till a por­tion of it touched the breasts and it looked like a lactation. 

The scene befud­dled Oba, as he knelt too, broke a kola, poured some more gin, prayed aloud, let my emp­ty heart find love, and laughed. 

The rum­ble of the thun­der made them shud­der and like the clouds angri­ly poured down rain like bust­ed pipes. 

Was this a sign of an answered prayer? Tola asked.

I don’t know, I am only a tour guide here and not the Aworo. He laughed. 

The tor­rent of the wind, made the wood­en small win­dow flut­ter as if it would break. Tola stood up and pulled it clos­er to its hook. He picked up the mat, and laid it on the floor, while sprawl­ing on it, and buried his head in his thighs. 

The steps would be slip­pery now even if it stops ‘Oba inter­rupt­ing the silence that now hov­ered in the air. 

Sat close to him on the mat, shoul­der to shoul­der, and occa­sion­al­ly raps his shoul­der with his, until the two gave each oth­er a steal­ing glance. 

“You said you used to be a banker, how long have you worked here” were ques­tions from the duo like a knock wood. Then laugh­ter, and silence, and an awk­ward silence. They looked at each other’s eyes, and like indi­vid­u­als who had been pas­sion­ate­ly burn­ing and desirous, grasped each other’s heads, and began an in-depth con­sum­ma­tion of their lips. The two fell supine on the mat and were com­plete­ly over­pow­ered by this deep­est passion.

Ewo! Awon won leleyi (Abom­i­na­tion, who are these?) said a man stand­ing at the entrance with hands filled with all types of leafy things? 

Ha! Oba, you dey mad? You bring peo­ple to come here to defile this place?  Oke Udane ma ri aba mo e, roared in a dialec­tal sim­i­lar to what Tola heard from the chil­dren when he came in the morning. 

Oba clam­bered from the mat and head­ed to the door for a chase, but the stand­ing man floored him with a blow. The man called again, and two oth­er men, who were approach­ing ran inside the build­ing and got their ears filled with what they had seen. 

Aworo, must hear this, one said. 

Before nko. He needs to see what had become his hut, and what kind of sac­ri­lege is committed. 

Not even you, Oba. Aja! (Dog!) 

Where is Aworo, he should have been here, the rain must have inter­cept­ed his movement. 

Good, it is here we will wait for him. 

Please, Tola final­ly mus­tered the strength to plea for their lives. 

You sil­ly dog wey man dey touch touch for hill. 

5.    

It was evening, and the sun seemed to have cast its full­ness on the hills, long after the rain had stopped, and much longer after the men were caught. 

The men in some cor­ners, tak­ing turns to crack jokes, and a few times, taunt the caught men on who was play­ing the woman, and who was play­ing the man. At some points, the man that looked at the eldest, who had ini­tial­ly seen them, smack their heads and whip them with the leafy cut branch he car­ried. Then they heard a whis­tle, a famil­iar one, and as it drew near­er, they stood up from their makeshift seats, stoop­ing to wel­come the Aworo, who had come to super­vise the men who were on the hills to pre­pare the huts and clear the vicin­i­ty with the for the forth­com­ing fes­ti­val ritual. 

Ba le o, greet­ing the aworo. 

Enh, he jerked his head up motion­ing to why Oba , and the oth­er man were sweaty and ter­ri­fied on the floor.

E ba, .. na so we see am. Wetin we see, we no fit talk. 

Na Oga Ajayi here catch them o. they were togeth­er, and about to, cupped his left-hand fin­gers and at inter­val thrust his right mid­dle finger. 

Oba, na true? Aworo queried? 

Ha, bami… No, that was not what hap­pened. We were… Oba inter­ject­ed but was slapped with a back­hand by the man who had seen them, Oga Ajayi. 

Ajayi stopped, and the Aworo’s com­mand­ed halt­ed fur­ther slap. 

He looked at his men, and then cast a help­less look on both men who were already kneel­ing ram­ming their hands togeth­er, soaked with tears and expect­ing the inevitable dis­grace, and most like­ly the beatings. 

Well, he began, “Let’s not cru­ci­fy these men or fight for the god­dess whose pres­ence this all hap­pened. Besides, it is get­ting late, and you too need rest after the long work. And in as much as this is a sac­ri­lege, let’s be care­ful to decide for the god­dess what he must see as an aber­ra­tion. So, this is what we will do. We will keep them here, in the pres­ence of the god­dess they have defiled, and see what becomes of their flesh while we return tomor­row, that’s Tuesday. 

And I am sure, by the time we return tomor­row, Oro­sun would have killed them or have struck them with lep­rosy.” He said. 

Ha, Tues­day! Tola protest­ed, strug­gling to stand up, but received per­sis­tent kicks from the men before the next com­mand of the Aworo could stop them. 

Okay, that’s right. Baba has spo­ken well. Oga Ajayi said, and the oth­er men took turns leav­ing the hut, and after they had ham­mered the win­dows with nails from the back, they bolt­ed its door with an iron rod picked from the floor. 

Tomor­row is here already, Oga Ajayi said to the oth­er two men. 

Yes, Tues­day, Aworo replied.

From the writer

 

:: Account ::

Olus­eye Fakin­lede is a Niger­ian writer and free­lance jour­nal­ist. He is a grad­u­ate of Eng­lish and Lit­er­a­ture. ‘Seye is inter­est­ed in African lit­er­a­ture with sub­jects around men­tal health, migra­tion, cul­ture, reli­gion, sex­u­al­i­ty, and Afro­fu­tur­ism. He has also been pub­lished on Afro Rep, Scrawl Place, New Note Poet­ry, Art Lounge Jour­nal, Brit­tle Paper, Afr­o­critik, and else­where. Find him on Twit­ter @ohxeye.