Edwin Olu Bestman writes about children in Liberia with metaphors that are disturbing. One reads through the poem hoping it is not the real situation of things but at the same time, one is awed by the fluidity of Edwin’s language and the apt employment of poetic devices.

– Editorial Team

every child smells like a graveyard/
bodies decorated with marks of pain/
their eyes painting scenes of dark memories

i bet that you take a minute to review a child’s body/
you’ll learn that their tongues are nailed inch by inch/
you’ll learn that being a liberian is synonymous to commiting suicide

there are many broken bodies/
like broken maps, they have lost their sense of direction/
it’s sad that these trees continue to bear unwanted fruits

life in liberia is like an untold story/
every child is surviving instead of living/
now, silence becomes a usual vocabulary for a disturbed vessel

many hearts are broken like the budget/
many armpits are deeply rooted in tears/
& many skins have tasted death twice a day

every child feels unsafe/
the news on grandfather’s tv reads: “every child should buy his/her own CCTV camera”/
this is the preparation of a child’s funeral

About The Author

Edwin Olu Bestman is a multi-award-winning Liberian poet, author, and civil engineer. He writes from his home in Monrovia. Some of his works have been published in The Rising Phoenix Review, Eboquills, Nantygreens, Literary Yard, Spillwords, etc…

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