Subconsciously Shattered
By Dimitri Seemungal
I close my eyes and I appear in a dream.
“Where am I?” I ask.
Someone stands in front of me.
He tells me, “you’re asleep.
I heard that you’re broken.
Shattered to be precise.
Tell me, what do you want?”
I tell him:
“To be loved, consoled and have a sense of security.
To not be afraid that I’ll be abandoned.
That I could trust, and not keep my loved ones at arms length.
To just not feel this pain anymore.”
He comes up to me
Leans in with a hug
And tells me the one thing I didn’t say.
“You’re worth it. You are always worth it. Remember that.”
A tear sheds from my eye
I hear a bell ring.
“You will awaken now. Know I am always with you. I shall love you always.”
And with that I awake.
About the author:
Dimitri Seemungal is currently studying psychology in his second year at the University of Ottawa. He is also a singer-songwriter-rapper and actor. Dimitri has released numerous projects on YouTube, most recently releasing his seventh album “Mental Dimension” in February 2017.
Salt Men
By Ahmed Suleimi
I’ve got some of my mother’s music,
rolled up like Moroccan rugs at a medina
and tucked beneath my tongue.
Some days the music oozes out of me
from the pores in my skin, and the cracks on my feet.
The people I sit next to on my way to work
are troubled by the way I have been playing “Color of love” by Billy Ocean.
I’ve got all my brother’s shoes.
Shoes that talk about immigration,
loudly on the 95-sardine.
The passengers on the sardine are puzzled,
and almost disappointed
when my English contradicts my shoes.
To them I am
Man with shoes No 1.
Another spectacle catalogued for Saturday lunches.
But aren’t all men nothing but a collection of the shoes they have grown out of,
And all the shoes they will eventually grow into?
Aaah, merika
By Ahmed Suleimi
Tell me of your
Aaah, merika.
So rife with choice
That, men choose to be women.
Tell me about your uncle, Sam.
How he has duped the people
Under the sweet pretext of freedom and bravery.
Tell me of your wall
That you will not pay for.
Immigration
By Ahmed Suleimi
We were water in buckets
Drowning in ourselves
Stagnant,
And dreaming of the ocean.
About the author
Ahmed Suleimi was born and raised in Northern Nigeria. He is currently completing a BASc in Electrical Engineering at the University of Ottawa. His work draws from both Senegalese and Nigerian culture. He writes about immigration, infatuation, death, birth, war, and adolescence from alternative points of view. He has loved poetry since he was introduced to the work of Khalil Gibran at a young age. You can reach him at [email protected].
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