My heart is a thorny savannah, a dry garden where tough, sparse, short trees look like african men. It's an empty forest, a dark forest, with horrific skies, with blue birds. Every night, it rains and rains, and black shrubs grow with long hairs on its body. Portrait of my heart is a desert; a hot land, and therein, there's a bitter rain, drunken as water. But to honest beings, it's a garden with mango fruits, with flowing milk, with singerbirds, and there, every drop of sweat, a charming rain. I can remember, when mother gave birth to my thorny heart; people were scared, ran away and no one else visited our house again, for I'd chase whoever was bad and tended to come across my way.
Salim Yakubu Akko, World Voices Magazine’s Nigerian correspondent, a poet and short story writer. He has been published in Trouvaille Review, ILA Magazine, Ice Lolly Review, World Voices Magazine, Spill Words Press, Upwrite Magazine, Applied Worldwide, Scratch Poetry Magazine, Literary Yard, Parrot Box, Calabar Poetry Magazine, Daily Trust Newspaper, The Nation News Nigeria, The Guardian Newspaper, Independent Nigeria, Nigerian Tribune Newspaper, Opinion Nigeria, My Nigeria, African Fingers, The Campus Watch, Today Post Nigeria, People’s Daily Newspaper and elsewhere. Shortlisted for the 2021 Bill Ward Prize for Emerging Writers; 2021 GSSS Gombe delegate for the annual Hadiza Ibrahim Aliyu Secondary Schools Festival (2021 HIASFEST); participant in the 2020 Jewel Writing Workshop and also a participant in the 2021 Jewel Peace Project. He is also a member of Gombe Jewel Writers’ Association, Creative Club Gombe State University and Hilltop Creative Arts Foundation. Akko lives in the great city of Gombe state.
The Pine Cone Review 