Three Poems by Kaothar Kadir

Panadol Extra As An Heirloom

My mother used to swallow the two white
pills with a wince.
Now it dissolves like chalk onto her spotted tongue.
Jaws churning like the innards of a great ship.
A casual pet to the cat beneath the driver’s seat. What comes after,
is a yawn for water. Warm with a sting of steel,
of capped humidity, of sun-baked plastic.
The bottle is half-empty

sunk into the cup-holder where it rubs shoulders
with discarded jewelry.
We talk about the weather and
bad-mouth extended families.
A tiny yielding to the pain. An inch added to the mile of
‘you win this round today.’

Well, tomorrow comes.
And it’s the getting home after the long hot drive that does it.
Now its less about the pain
and more about the bargain.
Now its less about the headache,
and more about my brain stewing in its own fluid.
Now its genetic. An iron moistness haunts my taste-buds.
Now its my daughter licking the blackboard
and
the heat
melting the gold off my wristwatch.

*

A Mentos in Coke

The days line up like a set of dentist-fixed
ivory teeth. They are made of me and from me
in equal capacities. I wake up and its always morning.
I always want my bowl of pap, sugared lightly. The
pigeons are always cooing. I always wait for some
kind of chaos to barge in.

I am swimming through a pit of tar. The sky is black and
weeping above me. I am in my mind mind mind.
I am bubbling like a Mentos in coke. I am
my window, closing my blinds,
ashamed to see.

My hands are always empty.

I’d take up knitting, but then tomorrow, I’d have to knit. And
I’d murder a friend but then I’d have to deal with the body,
the thought, guilty or if I’m laughing it off.
And it would fit with a click. It is
everything I already do
and already did.

Everything has a red line, everything, a red smile.
I could die, but who knows
what awaits. More numbness,
more stillness, more undoing,
more days.

*

Lonely as a Fever

White-winged and feverish.
You always swooped in before I came
crashing. But I always liked teeth
bashed in. Smeared across the pavement
like ash across a forehead.

It’s a following. Rancid and green and
the ceiling goes further away the more you
stare at it. I tried to change the light-bulb once
and my toes pirouetted on their own accord. My
hands on the knob, before I could stop myself

and in came the outside air like a punch
to the face. So fresh, it ate my rot. So plenty,
it entered through the pores of my skin.
I see your shadow. Latching onto my marrow.
Black-winged. Frantic.

Swooping in before I come crashing. But I
always found the bottom and its skeletons inviting.
An open door. I hope it locks. And the outside
is kept in.

*

Kaothar Kadir is a twenty-one year old poet living in Nigeria. She began writing poetry at the age of seven. She was shortlisted in the Nigerian Students Poetry Prize in 2022. She’s currently in her final year of pursuing a bachelor’s degree in History and International Studies in the University of Ilorin. And when she’s not bent over her laptop writing, she can be found reading (or rereading) a book, watching A24 movies or dancing to her self-curated Spotify playlists.