Freedom Theory

By Oladosu ​Michael Emerald

​It starts with a form. One page, two signatures, your name fractured between two lines like a misstep on unfamiliar stairs. The room is cold; the walls are too white to trust. They ask where you were born as if location carries the blame. You write the answer slowly, each letter dragged out like a confession. Outside, the wind shifts something heavy through the trees. A child chases a balloon, the sound of laughter swallowed by the traffic’s roar. He left the same way he arrived: silent as a bird landing on snow. In his wake, the house became a museum of undone things—half-written notes, an unwashed mug, and the ghost of his cologne lingering in the air. Once, he said life was an argument with the body: hunger against restraint, longing against time. Maybe this is what they call freedom: the ability to leave without a sound, to abandon a silence that grows louder in absence. Inside the office, the clerk looks at you—not at your face but through it—and says, Wait here. Here is where the air swells with things unsaid. Here is where your story drowns beneath theirs. Time drips from the clock, slow and deliberate, the way water finds cracks in stone. On the train out of town, his name appears in the condensation on the window, each letter dissolving as the wheels hum against the tracks. Somewhere between here and there, a theory forms: maybe freedom isn’t where you go or what you leave behind. Maybe it’s the space between breaths, the quiet before the next decision. The clerk calls your name. You stand. The child lets go of the balloon. Both disappear into the sky.  

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Instructions for Building a God

By Oladosu Michael Emerald

First, take the Nile: 
its curve like a bent finger 
pointing toward the sun. 
 
Then the ibis— 
that white smear against dusk. 
Let it carry the sky in its wings. 
 
You’ll need gold, of course: 
a god must gleam, 
even in the dark. 
 
Take the stars, scatter them 
like seeds over sand. 
Let Orion’s belt tighten 
around the throat of your myth. 
 
Carve the body from basalt, 
black as a night 
that swallows the jackal's howl. 
The face must be unknowable, 
half-human, half-something 
we can only imagine. 
 
Don’t forget the offerings. 
Blood. Bread. A hymn 
that no one remembers 
how to sing. 
 
When you’re finished, 
place the god in the desert. 
Let the wind do the worshiping.

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Sorry, I Didn't Call You Back

By Oladosu Michael Emerald

After Arah Ko

​Sorry, I didn’t call you back; the world’s too loud sometimes. My mother called first. I ran out of data. I was trying to keep the lights on. I’m tired of explaining my silence. The roads were flooded because Ibadan is always a hurricane of horns and broken promises. The guy at the next bus stop was selling dreams for ₦200. I bought one. It didn’t work. I prayed to God because I didn’t know what else to do, but He was busy elsewhere. I still believe in Him anyway. Sorry, I didn't call you back; I had to eat. I didn’t have enough to eat because love doesn’t fill an empty stomach. I heard your voice in the rain, and it drowned me. The landlord came knocking because everything here costs more than it’s worth. Every hello feels like a debt I’ll never repay. I told you I was fine, but you knew I wasn’t. Sorry, I didn't call you back; Silence is cheaper than therapy. My phone rang, and it sounded like your laughter. I wanted to say I love you, but I choked on the truth. You’ve always been too far to reach, and I’ve always been too scared to try.

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Oladosu Michael Emerald (he/him) is the author of the poetry book Every Little Thing That Moves, an art editor at Surging Tide magazine, a first-reader at Radon Journal, a digital/musical/visual artist, a photographer, a footballer, a boxer, and a political scientist. He teaches art at the Arnheim Art Gallery to kids and adults, is an Art Instructor at the Anasa Collection Art Gallery, and is a volunteer art instructor at Status Dignus Child Rescue Home and Ibeere Otun Initiative. He is a Pioneer Fellow of the Muktar Aliyu Art Residency, Minna, Niger State, Nigeria.

His works have been published or forthcoming in many magazines and won numerous awards in writing and art; a few to mention: winner of Garden Party Collective Neurodivergent Poetry contest, winner of Off the Limit Art contest, winner of Sprinng Annual Poetry Contest, second runner-up in Fireflies poetry contest, finalist in AprilCentaur Essay contest, finalist in Arting Arena Poetry Chapbook contest, Providus Bank anthology alongside Professor Wole Soyinka, finalist in Paradise Gate House Poetry Contest, Lolwe, Better Than Starbucks, Ake Review, Daily Times Nigeria, Nigerian Tribune, Guardian News, Flash Frog, Blanket Gravity, Icefloe Press, Feral, Inner Worlds, Lyra, Oriire, Kalahari Review, Con-scio, Madness Muse Press, Fraidy Cat Lit, Eco Punk, Spill Word Web, Paper Lantern Lit, the Maul magazine, Zoetic, Pinch Journal, Penumbric, Motheaten magazine, Native skin, Third Estate Art magazine, thehearth magazine, kalonipa, and elsewhere.
 
He's a man who does not know how to give up, and art chose him before he existed. 
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Say hi to him on Twitter @garricologist and Instagram @garrycologist