As my lifeless body lay on that narrow bed in a congested local clinic, the irony that I had been a nurse in a government hospital was not lost on me.

i left too soon i was spine out of summer inside another man’s sweat-slick throat forgive me separate fragments

If I said Eve liked it, you might not believe me.

I take off the world, piece by piece. The garments sewn by unknown tailors.

Some things remained the same, I thought; bodies remained bodies even when they could be changed.

I liked her skin better lilac, but she always got mad at me when I told her that. Some bullshit about being “conventionally attractive,” but I guess I just wasn’t into what everyone else was.

Her skin crawled with invisible no-see-ums, and the only way to fight back the tears welling up in her throat, eyes, and ears was to c-l-e-a-n thoroughly.

The man with the black suit comes mama told him I act like a boy
She says she will not mother abomination

We gather in a friend’s living room. We gather in the most intimate of our spaces. We gather on email. We gather in Pangani.

My mother and I strolled on the opposite sides of the road and it was striking that we were in each other’s company, and yet cars swished in between us. It must have been one of my mother’s safety measures.

Since our bodies too were casualties of thought
we collected organs in bed with palms
learning how to play for the first time –

Humans are delicious. You can’t explain it to Tisvin, even though you have tried. How can you do away with such wonderful creatures?

Age fifteen. I am the ugly fat girl; tomboyish, to not be considered as such. I saw the Saturn Devouring His Son by Goya: it awoke something I could not yet recognize.

A woman must have the ability to reattach her body parts, every time they fall off.

your body is yours until
you place a lover’s name on your tongue.
after, there’s a new religion. godless.

When a friend confessed that she too had done it, whispering over coffee in an overpriced Nairobi café, Illuminata felt she was joining a sisterhood.

I know how softy too,
my body travels with this water,

He always did things like that, stating the obvious, pre-empting problems. Six-foot tall Peter, with his purple black skin and pale grey eyes, was my right-hand man, bodyguard and driver.

You spend the evening in the Champs smoking room, drinking wine and rolling cigarettes while you wait. The air is hot and acrid.