Michael Agunbiade
Nobody knows how they are Going to Die
because this is a secret God has kept away
from us. because dying is the cost of living
a life full of sin. for those who are blessed
with more music than misery,
it’s a reward for burning their bridges
while the world was right here,
wishing away its bone.
in all of my little stay in this life
i’ve never beheld mercy. yet i have seen people
get lost in every version of it.
once it was my father. he built a chapel
inside his ribs & his ribs broke into the language of water.
in another version, it was a faggot
who had kept his life inside my hands.
when i asked him why, he said the last time
he almost came close to surrender,
it was his own hands that held the hook of his neck.
but suddenly they flinched into flowers.
the kind a man gives to his lover
before the night of their first sex.
in a city whose throat sings of war
a man screams i have seen the absolute ending of this world
but didn’t see the bullet that would escape through his undershirt.
while i was loading his blood inside my jacket,
another walked up to me, then says, in all my dreams
there is a little boy who is rising into smoke
& in praise of that he thinks
that’s how the world would come
to an end. how the saint and the sinner
shall be separated from each other
the same way a butcher separates flesh and bones
in the business of exchanging people’s desire for money.
yet, nobody knows they are going to die
because no one leaves this earth
unless they master the art of gravedigging.
nobody knows they are going to die
because the world was made to multiply
and so is the madness of men.
Bio:
MICHAEL AGUNBIADE is a young Nigerian poet who writes from the small hole of his room. He is a pushcart prize nominee, winner of the 2025 Eriata Oribhabor Poetry Prize, a finalist in the 2024 Wanjohi Prize for African Poetry. His works have appeared or are forthcoming in Afrimag, The Shore Poetry, Brittle Paper, Variant Literature, Bodega, & elsewhere.
