in my country
Ayòdéjì Israel
the church, these days, is a house of slaughter
in my country. i am sorry to protect your pain.
the earth does not wonder again if black boys
are daily in its shelter. this land does not query
the digger anymore about its doggedness.
i am not my country. in my church, we were fifty
reaching God, stretching our lips to gulp answers
to our prayers, snatching hope from heaven's realm
and planting it on the bosom of our hearts, without
any stench of sin, without a comma of blasphemy
sheltering on our tongues. my city is mad—at
my religion: some people offered their bodies
as living sacrifices to their Lord, but my country
snatched their breath before it could touch the face
of the sky. my city is wary of everything that talks
about God: it throws fire at innocent bodies; it uses
straw to suck blood from the soft throats of innocent
worshippers. blood: is normal in the house of God,
ask Elijah. but here, blood: is not for cleansing,
it is for victory; in my country, it is a matter of bravery,
and bullet is its accomplice. in a church, last year,
humans were slaughtered, and God was un-mad.
maybe men were lambs in those days. in Owo, men
were used to worship [g]od in another way. their bodies
were shattered in front of their [g]od for him to witness
his creations fall and crumble like a standing glass.
all i see is worship. all i see is where men leave
their bodies and gather in heaven. in my city, all i see
are bodies, used by bodies as a point of contact
to the creator of bodies.
Writer’s Notebook
In 2022, a massacre happened in one of the biggest churches in my country during a Sunday worship service. Some unknown gunmen rushed inside the church in the middle of the worship and gunned innocent people down. Blood splashed on the floor of the church, and numerous newspapers plastered this heartbreaking screen on their faces. It broke my heart; it still breaks it anytime I remember it. So I decided to write about it. Those innocent worshippers became memory and stayed with me.
About the writer
Ayòdéjì Israel is a student at the University of Ibadan, Ibadan. He is known for being a poet, writer, a political activist, and many other things. His works have appeared/are forthcoming in Livina Press, Kreative Diadem, OneArtPoetry, Lumiere Review, Arts Lounge, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Defunct Magazine, and antinarrative zine. You can find him on Twitter @Ayo_einstein.