Mother, what qualifies me — a leakage of skin at birth? months slut by. 
yet, all of my rusty verbs come back to me unfulfilled.
not one bearing the bitemarks of a uterus.

a scar ago, I happened on a boy child at the lavatory, 
sank my teeth on his collarbone as he held unto my pronouns. 
says, I am better loved in bits than as a whole.

& in the hunger of this moment, I consider ripping my loin to shred. 
brain on the washing sink, teeth tightening a doorknob. 
fingerprints staining the atmosphere. asthmatic lung, 
perishing by the window: all the air to kill for. 

I stare back at this day & marvel at how summer spill against 
the bright body of land & its name shivers dusk.
in a wild gift of panic I prod my hands in search of pulse, 
& felt the throbbing loudness of grief tearing through the patchwork 
of my lungs: grammar of my youth — razor-sharp with blood. 

this year, rage preserved me. in the next I pledge to be smoke eater 
of guns & other perishable items. to be unrehearsed poem. 
a sad joke, cracked in places I identify as nothing but flame, 
& live up to its reddish demands — the way I landlock a crumbling town. 

‘chaos’ scrawled in charcoal glory, the way an ash fingered boy 
starfishes his palm on the crevices of my chest. 
paws, tender as a soft crime wading past tissue. 
thumb, carpet bombing my rib cage. 

tell me these thoughts never crossed your mind: 
that living goes beyond just hard breath & costume, 
that the pit seared in the throat of each teenager is a bold statement. 

you, growing loud with puberty. tears plastered to the cheek of 
each mother. each offspring tearing through a lifespan. 
here, grief blades through rhythm — sharpened slowly in me, 
like dagger dragged upon a whetstone. 

Mother, hear me. in the mouth of a poem filled with carnivores, 
a verse swallows its kind.

[Nnadi Samuel (he/him/his) holds a B.A in English & literature from the University of Benin. Author of ‘Nature knows a little about Slave Trade’ selected by Tate.N.Oquendo (Sundress Publication, 2023). His works have been previously published/forthcoming in FIYAH, Fantasy Magazine, Uncanny Magazine, Strange Horizons, The Deadlands, Heartline Spec, Timber Ghost Press, Haven Spec Magazine, Penumbric Speculative Poetry & Fiction Magazine, SilverBlade Magazine, Liquid Imagination & elsewhere. A 3x Best of the Net, and 7x Pushcart Nominee.]