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"I'm gonna pack my things and leave you behind" by Prachi Valechha

Overseas by Abdulbaseet Yusuff

The word, overseas, is funny when a brother says it;
               all it takes is a winter full of teeth to pull the truth
               off that fleshy word like fishbone

We would find that he hasn’t gone over the seas,
               it is the seas that have gone over him; because
               when he returns,

we lifeguard the capsized boat that is his mouth
               rescue soggy consonants mangled in the wreck.
               The sea is carnivorous.

I think of seas, & I think of flesh. Sometimes, fish.
               Sometimes, man.
               
Man is made from water & man makes up water
               However watery, the paradox stands
               
How deep do you need to dredge to draw
               people from Dunbar Creek?

The sea is a body of saltwater – I’ll let the textbooks have that
               The sea is bodies in saltwater

Abdulbaseet Yusuff is a Nigerian writer. His works appear or are forthcoming in Brittle Paper, Rattle, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Kalahari Review, Memento: An Anthology of Contemporary Nigerian Poetry. He's on Twitter @bn_yusuff.

Prachi Valechha is a freelance cartoonist and animator from India. Valechha loves to make Toons and Toons for Tunes.
You can find more of their work at: instagram.com/rainbowteeth
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