No One Knows the Road to a New Year

By 

Sarah Adeyemo

Thirty-five children have been killed in a crush at a Christmas

 funfair in the south-west Nigerian city of Ibadan, 

with six others hospitalised, the police say. 

— Chris Ewokor in Abuja & Mansur Abubakar in Kano

BBC News, 19 December 2024

but we keep ending December, like a full stop,

                                punctuated to begin a sentence.

I am not yet a father, but I feed many stomachs.

                  At times, a cramp is a packaged diet

when emptiness dwells in stomachs.

                     How can you be generous until there's

nothing left to give but yourself. There's no drum

                      of hunger pangs, I wish not to dance to

because I want my conscience unsullied. I want to keep 

           holy the empathy poverty once carved into me.

But what will I do when the country is in a coma? 

         I browse the sadness coating the citizens’ hearts,

and stare at bodies empty of bread and breath. 

          What did I just read? The condolences from those

who could have mocked death with love, with charity,

                   with even a pinch of flour as the clock sings.

 I only wish that it were a lie or that it happened in a dream.

             Everyone blames the system's loss of humanity,

 The preacher says nothing new under the sun.

                                                                It is sweet to say,

but until your country happens to you, you won't know

                                        the definition of a failed system.  

It's only mid-December, some have lost their way to January.

                                                 Lord, let famine become history

 or like the wall of Jericho, let hunger collapse to our chorus.

Bio: Sarah Adeyemo, SWAN IX, is a poet, writer, editor, spoken word artiste and communication expert from Nigeria. The author of The Shape of Silence, a micro chapbook. She draws inspiration from solitude and experiences. She is a fellow of the SprinNG Writing Fellowship. Sarah has work published/forthcoming work on Pepper Coast Magazine, Synchronized Chaos Magazine, The Weeds Review, Akpata Magazine, The Shallow Tales Review, The Muse Journal, The Weganda Review, Everscribe Magazine, Afrillhill Press, TV-63 Magazine, Poems for Persons Interest, Northern Writers Forum Journal, Eboquills, Rinna Lit. Anthologies, and elsewhere. Her works have been shortlisted for the 2025 Labari Prize for Poetry and longlisted for the 2025 Eriata Oribhabor Poetry Prize. She serves as the Managing Editor at Words-Empire Magazine and a News & Feature writer at Journal of African Youth Literature.