Audric Adonteng

our pot runneth over:

waakye leaves loiter in lukewarm water
tears dry into salt deposits across my brown face
dirt and grass stains form an x on my denim overalls,
time will pass over this body.
prune juice trickles onto my forehead.
tap, tap, tap.
our eyes do not shift.
soft footsteps cross the roof, and the white settles on my home.
tap, tap, tap
the trees are gone and the world is dead, i say.

why did we rake the children from the trees and make piles of their bodies
& play as the warm colors filled the air?
why did the world halt and give silence an indefinite revival?

but my mother tells me the leaves will return.
waakye leaves begin to steam.
the water attempts to escape the pot.
i look into her eyes // i don’t believe her.

for my mother’s eyes are brown. her skin is brown.

the skin of trees,
so my mother must be a leaf.
when do you turn back green, i ask.
she laughs // i do not believe her

the waakye leaves are screaming.
the pot runneth over.
she holds me.

there is no air between us.

Audric Adonteng is a Ghanaian-American poet and essayist from Leominster, Massachusetts. His work, from poetry on race & identity to essays on cycles of gun violence, has been recognized by The New York Times, Polyphony Lit Magazine, The Empty Inkwell Review, Altered Reality Magazine, Moonbow Magazine, Lead & Pulp Poetry Magazine, Art on the Trails: EXPOSURE, The Eunoia Review, and Poems for Patients. He is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Insurgence Literary Magazine, a journal dedicated to uplifting the voices of marginalized writers and hidden stories. A graduate of the Adroit Summer Mentorship Program and the Cosmic Writers Workshop, Audric attends Harvard University. Besides writing and reading, Audric loves spending time in nature, translating Latin, and spending time with his family.