by Olumide Manuel The Ian/Unsplash means to trampoline. means to lit a bloom between the fangs of griefs. means to change direction after hitting an obstacle. I remember my father cracking jokes in the poorly lit room where his mother laid dead. people laughed then fell to silence. people fall and remain capable of joy. it is a reckoning. the same sky of hailstorm is the same sky of sunlight. sometimes, our trauma forgets to wear us. It doesn’t make it less of a skin. but it

by Olumide Manuel Pinakeen Bhatt this year, my hypocrisy grows. you cannot imagine the weight of lies i’m comfortable with. at dawn, I call them hopes. at dusk, they become jokes. dull knives of comedy, shelved in my chest. it becomes a little hard to laugh like i used to, yet I can’t unlearn my addiction to the passivation of casualties. it is a survival tool. it is what I teach my students. it is what I will preach tomorrow — you will be okay. everything will be fine. Olumi