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“I do not wish to carry so much burden” © 2022 by Maria Carvalho

Content warning:


They say God seeks friendship within a veiled temple,
but I am an open vessel hungry for miracles,
the type a woman, my neighbour, sought
the day she walked barefoot to her God.
As I write this poem, I am imagining how God
would feel to see her loaded with anxieties on her back.
Like this woman, I am carrying the world on my back.
I tightened my country so well it won’t fall.
Midway, my back aches, not for the weight of the world
but that which lies in my heart. I think of homeless boys.
I think of the bleeding hamlet. I think of you.
I think of tomorrow, if it ever comes.
I think of us, if we can ever stay alive to witness tomorrow.



Pacella Chukwuma- Eke, NGP Xv, is a nineteen-year-old Nigerian writer. She is the author of The Apocalypse (chapbook) and Love in its bliss and sins, runner-up of the 2022 Nigeria Prize for Teen Authors (Poetry). Some of her works have appeared or are forthcoming in Roughcut Press, Havenspec, Gyroscope Review, and elsewhere. She tweets @PacellaEke, and can be found on IG @pacellachukwumaeke. Her chapbook can be accessed through selar.co/pacella.
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