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Because a stranger walked into her thighs
with a spark in his eyes. The one she mistook for love.
But love would never truly set her on fire;
exploit the places her mother had marked forbidden
until all that was left is a word that replaces beauty
with doom. Riddle this: green heart exchanged for ash
is called? Even the clouds had witnessed the extinction
of existence. It was then she knew she was both garden
and Adam in this story. A haven for dead bodies.
So, boy, there is no love in me to give.
When you cup my chin, I mistake your hands
for matchsticks. After all, wasn’t it your father
who set a forest on fire?



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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