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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.
Current Issue
1 Jul 2024

There is a town in the north almost exactly where Canada turns into America and British Columbia collides with Alaska and the ocean runs up into the land and it is dead but not buried.
on every other land— / we had imprinted our / language, insignia, flag, and anthem.
It was then she knew she was both garden and Adam in this story.
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