In the hour when harmattan dust forgets its own name,
a sovereign steps out of the white fire of noon
and teaches the sun how to kneel.
Head shaved clean as a prophet’s vow,
scalp gleaming like the blade of a cutlass
fresh from the river’s baptism,
every follicle banished
to the exile of ordinary men.
Skin: a storm of milk poured over obsidian,
so pale it drinks the daylight whole,
then spits it back as moonlight
on a night that never asked permission.
Eyes—
two ancient moons drowning in their own eclipse,
rimmed in the indigo of sleepless gods,
staring past the lens,
past the living,
straight into the throat of tomorrow
and daring it to blink first.
The mouth:
a single slash of royal blood
painted thick as the oath of kings,
so red it hums in Yoruba,
so wet it drips with the memory
of every palm wine spilled at midnight
when the ancestors refused to sleep.
Lips parted just enough
to let the silence escape
wearing the scent of shea butter
and the threat of thunder.
Collar high as the walls of Ile-Ife,
quilted in white diamonds harder than grief,
each stitch a prayer
each ridge a throne
for a neck that has carried
the weight of empires
and still chooses to dance.
Light falls like judgment from an angry sky,
but this face catches every bolt
and turns it into coronation oil.
The glow is not borrowed;
it is stolen,
refined,
worn like a crown
by one who was never meant to survive
yet rewrote the rules of survival
in lipstick and quiet thunder.
Beneath the porcelain mask
a drum begins—
slow,
deliberate,
ancient as the Niger’s first heartbeat.
It says:
I was here before your borders.
I will be here after your maps burn.
This is not a picture.
This is the moment
the ghost of every unbeheaded queen
stepped into the frame
and smiled with tomorrow’s teeth.
Look.
The red mouth is moving.
It is saying your name
in a language
your fear has not yet learned
to pronounce.
a sovereign steps out of the white fire of noon
and teaches the sun how to kneel.
Head shaved clean as a prophet’s vow,
scalp gleaming like the blade of a cutlass
fresh from the river’s baptism,
every follicle banished
to the exile of ordinary men.
Skin: a storm of milk poured over obsidian,
so pale it drinks the daylight whole,
then spits it back as moonlight
on a night that never asked permission.
Eyes—
two ancient moons drowning in their own eclipse,
rimmed in the indigo of sleepless gods,
staring past the lens,
past the living,
straight into the throat of tomorrow
and daring it to blink first.
The mouth:
a single slash of royal blood
painted thick as the oath of kings,
so red it hums in Yoruba,
so wet it drips with the memory
of every palm wine spilled at midnight
when the ancestors refused to sleep.
Lips parted just enough
to let the silence escape
wearing the scent of shea butter
and the threat of thunder.
Collar high as the walls of Ile-Ife,
quilted in white diamonds harder than grief,
each stitch a prayer
each ridge a throne
for a neck that has carried
the weight of empires
and still chooses to dance.
Light falls like judgment from an angry sky,
but this face catches every bolt
and turns it into coronation oil.
The glow is not borrowed;
it is stolen,
refined,
worn like a crown
by one who was never meant to survive
yet rewrote the rules of survival
in lipstick and quiet thunder.
Beneath the porcelain mask
a drum begins—
slow,
deliberate,
ancient as the Niger’s first heartbeat.
It says:
I was here before your borders.
I will be here after your maps burn.
This is not a picture.
This is the moment
the ghost of every unbeheaded queen
stepped into the frame
and smiled with tomorrow’s teeth.
Look.
The red mouth is moving.
It is saying your name
in a language
your fear has not yet learned
to pronounce.
