after Praise Osawaru
every night, my phone transforms into a hospital
front desk, hosting unsolicited calls and
verses bleeding affection and its iteration.
a labelled acquaintance texts me
“hi baby.
how was your day?
have you had dinner dear”
for reasons only he knows.
i become an air-traffic controller, converting kilobytes
of binary numbers to stickers, voice-notes and emojis
that do not appease me.
i wish to not be called
“dear or baby” by a boy whose contact
carries the (+234) country code.
my best friend suggests i use the block button,
but i cannot jail a boy for his expressiveness.
so i respond with
“hello.
please don’t call me dear and i am not you baby”
in hopes to get one less ping.
