The Exchange is the Weekly’s poetry corner, where a poem or piece of writing is presented with a prompt. Readers are welcome to respond to the prompt with original poems, and pieces may be featured in the next issue of the Weekly.
A List of Things That Went Missing That I Still Wonder About by Chima “Naira” Ikoro
- The forks in my parents house that my dad swears we must have thrown away.
- The see-thru Chinese restaurant carry-out containers my mom said to save that I definitely threw away.
- The lid of a bowl that I tried every single lid in the cupboard on and couldn’t find a match for, threw that away too.
- The $20 bill I got for finding someone’s lost dog.
- I went to spend it immediately and didn’t even have it anymore.
- All of the school supplies I begged my mom to buy from Office Max in September that never made it to winter break.
- The left or right foot of every ankle sock I’ve ever owned, without fail.
- The cornucopia in the Fruit of the Loom logo, remember that?
- Also what the hell even is a cornucopia?
- The $1.3 billion dollars of cocaine found on a cargo ship that was owned by J.P. Morgan, remember that?
- Where do you even store twenty tons of coke?
- All the toys my cat really likes;
- Why would you hide something you love from yourself?
- The “girls” we were talking about with the hashtag “bring back our girls.” Remember that?
- April made ten years since 276 girls were kidnapped from a school in Nigeria.
- Ninety of them are still missing.
- April made ten years since 276 girls were kidnapped from a school in Nigeria.
- Every lip gloss I’ve never finished;
- How could you lose something you love so carelessly?
- Hostages that probably wouldn’t survive being carpet bombed, obviously.
- Maybe their families didn’t specify that they be recovered in one piece but I thought that was implied.
- You can’t tell the difference between yours and theirs from a drone.
- Maybe peace wasn’t ever an option on the ballot in the first place.
- You can’t tell the difference between yours and theirs from a drone.
- Maybe their families didn’t specify that they be recovered in one piece but I thought that was implied.
- A child under rubble who was still alive when they stopped being searched for.
- The alleged “terrorists” under that hospital,
- and that church,
- and that school,
- and that entire city,
- and the one next to it,
- and the other one, too.
- The tens of thousands of Black women and children who’s beige files collect dust while memories of them outlive the system’s urgency.
- The link that makes all these things connected, or else this poem would just be clickbait.
- The reason why anybody wants anything so much, it is worth the life of a person you can afford to not care about, because you need an upgrade.
- The forks that were in the sink all along when it was my turn to do the dishes.
- The container I regret throwing away because I understand how much everything costs now, and how stupid it is to treat something like it’s disposable just because someone told you it is, but it really shouldn’t be.
- The lid of a bowl that I could never find a match for because it wasn’t mine to begin with.
- Money I got for just being a decent person, because decency is an anomaly.
- The difference between the left and the right:
- I can’t tell which sock is missing
- I don’t know if there will ever be a person on this ballot that will do the right thing.
- The school supplies I wasted while girls from the same country as me dissolved into history.
- This concept of peace, and the light I had in my eyes the first time I went to a protest.
- Every pair of earrings I loved.
- One day you take them off when you’re drunk, and you never see them again.
- My insurance, which expired at the end of last month, when I turned 26.
- Turns out this country can’t afford healthcare because there will always be something worth more than our lives, or anyone’s, for that matter.
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Prompt:
“What have you lost that is still worth finding?”
This could be a poem, journal entry, or a stream-of-consciousness piece. Submissions could be new or formerly written pieces.
Submissions can be sent to bit.ly/ssw-exchange or via email to chima.ikoro@southsideweekly.com
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