Winner of the Kofi Awoonor Poetry Prize 2025

because i was a flame of religion, fierce and inextinguishable, i forgot that a boy is also a phenomenon of blood and bone. that a boy is not always born to shine. and because in every page of my heart there was a shadow burning, darkness condemned, light triumphant. there was a room lambent with purity, faith and belief. i bore zeal in my tongue, like saliva, until it went sour and everything i tasted came unleavened, tart, like holy communion. in the marketplace where God is most available i asked for incandescence, asked for strength as boundless as an ocean, to scale these mountains. there, i saw a woman extricate the tangled folds of her flesh before a blazing altar, i heard her screams: Lord, make me a flaming miracle; the burning bush before which Moses bowed unshod. how it was on fire and yet not consumed. make me spotless, unblemished, white as snow. fill me, quench this thirst, make me a river of living water. how then do i tell you that my darkness blooms indomitably, that in senior high school i was once paralyzed by desire so strong i could no longer comprehend the light? the first time i told a friend, i was forced to cross a rubicon, he called me otá, called me a ‘slutty, disgusting …”. now i gather what remains of every burning, bury it into a corner of the sky, hopeful that by tomorrow i’d harvest a rainbow.