In Eruku, prayers ascended

and bullets answered first.

Church doors splintered;

a sanctuary of hope

transfigured into an altar of smoke and screams.

Three worshippers collapsed beside their Bibles,

their blood seeping like unanswered supplications

across the fissured concrete.

The pastor was dragged into the night,

his lamentations swallowed by bush paths

now highways for the damned.

When he speaks,

his energies are devoted to shaping narratives rather than saving lives,

arguing that the slaughter should not be called Christian genocide,

as if polishing perception

could heal a bullet wound,

as if discourse could halt a machete.

Osmund Agbo is a medical doctor and author. His works include, Black Grit, White Knuckles: The Philosophy of Black Renaissance and a fiction work titled The Velvet Court: Courtesan Chronicles. His latest works, Pray, Let the Shaman Die and Ma'am, I Do Not Come to You for Love, have just been released. He can be reached@ [email protected]