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.
Deficit by Chima “Naira” Ikoro
Not a single thing taken little by little,
every plate, in effort to fill out my frame, empty.
My goal weight looming, I battle my metabolism;
“No leftovers.”
Plates and papers agree in this way.
Every essay,
written at whatever the last minute is called.
I’m up the day that it’s due and I’ve been working on this paper
for hours,
deadline at my front door, finger hovering over the bell.
I’ve been in the library since Monday and it’s Wednesday now,
lost my Tuesday with my ID so I can’t check out these books.
But I cannot retake any more classes, I need to leave.
I need to stay so I can finish so I can leave.
A forgotten bill cries from beneath a pile of laundry,
I forgot to pay because I was working on something else that I forgot
first. I have to go in order but I’ve been folding my clothes
for months.
I keep wearing them and washing them and the pile never shrinks;
a reflection of all that’s wearing me.
The more it piles, the more I shrink.
Too small to function, I push my clothes to the foot of my bed
and sleep in a shape that is half my size.
I have a reason for all this, I just can’t remember.
I don’t sit in the back of the class,
so nothing before me can distract me.
Unsure of what’s behind me,
the notes, the group chats with classmates,
they all remind me to remember that I’ve been working on this technique
for years.
but this shadow dancing around in my peripheral vision,
to cowardly to be seen directly,
keeps catching
my attention
and stealing time that I always think I have more of.
The day I focused my mind and captured it,
I crushed it under grief for every version of myself
that was trying her best
in a losing game I’ve played my entire life thus far
with nothing left over.
and on my first night medicated,
my unfolded clothes are in a basket,
and my remaining food is in the fridge.
I take up the whole bed while I sleep,
not finished, but closer than before.
Prompt:
“What inner work do you owe yourself to complete before you can accomplish anything else?”
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
Psalms 23 as a Bystander to Heaven by harlem west
after LaNiah Moon
on 87th and cottage god is whoever be tried in public. what loose women pump down the block with calloused feet in church flats or bloody shoes and never make it home. whichever neighbor’s mid day yelling lazarus your folks from up under the basement tile, or whomever’s child lay to rest last at Leak and Sons. honorable mention to who blessed the barren table of leftovers for the third night straight after a 40 hour workday. where i’m from this is usually somebody’s momma, or eldest child motherless, hovering hands above whatever bones thrown down the placemat as braille. where i’m from, god is a house guest in your lower back post fleeing 20 miles north of your granny’s house in roseland. god is the secular worship you replay on the commute home for reverence post the pulpit. god is the proactive dreamscape of the addict your bus passes daily, high off Tina, loudpack, & benevolence. god is your dead classmate from middle school with beanstalk freckles and folks named after the Moon. is the mundane rants from granny behind the tv static, is the neighborhood church post the bulldozer, is consensual kisses under new suns, is prayers under soft breath before your past the porch again.
Chima Ikoro is the Weekly’s Community Engagement Coordinator.