Acknowledgement.
I really want to say ‘Thank you’ to Ballington and Spanner for the encouragement and the insults. Dear Anwuli, thank you for the offline and online editing. Much love to Bro jerry, Aunt Patience and Mr. Rex for the Phone and Wi-Fi that prevented me from lagging behind. Mathias, Elochukwu, Melvin and Victor (My favorite finalist) thank you for letting me use your laptops for writing, editing and compilation. Special thanks to Oluchi, My Pepperlinni for the muse and love. To Petros, who showed me that not all family are related by blood. Special acknowledgement to Oseme, Ayo, Heather, Femi, Larry, Solomon, Hope ,Bedford, my Unilag favorite. Jane, Juliet and Dave, Thank you for always being there. To Timothy, who called me the best writer in the world, even though he hasn’t said it with his mouth yet.
To my parents, who taught me to become a story teller ,Thank You.
Bullet Holes (A poem)
There are bullet holes on my mother's belly.
One hole for one child.
Blood doesn't flow from these holes, instead tears sprout from them.
They say blood is thicker, but I say tears are deeper.
My mother bled when she told us to close our legs but instead we became the mat that men could lay on anytime.
My mother bled when we tore pages from her Bible to bury leaves of marijuana.
My mother bled when she told us that the weapon in our hands had burnt the bridges to her past.
With each wound, my mother became slimmer.
We looked at her but we failed to see her.
We heard her but we failed to listen to her. Her words crawled in front of us, still we failed to catch them.
There are bullet holes on my mother's belly. One hole for one child.
My mother did not die sleeping on her belly. She died standing.
Written by Festus Obehi Destiny.