CategoriesComing Out Our Stories

Call for Submissions: Coming Out

We are pleased to announce the theme for April and May 2019 submissions on this platform as “Coming Out”. Have you come out? Do you plan to come out in the future? Have you had a failed attempt at coming out? Do you have thoughts around the concept of coming out? We want to share […]

CategoriesFirst Love Our Stories

Roses of Castille

For you with a heart lost in a sad life, the one whose songs have been shut out from light… February 2015 He skipped to Bode’s canopy wearing a white shirt that had seen more beautiful mornings under the sun a while after the games were over. He called out to me with his arms […]

CategoriesFirst Love Our Stories

Bowed, but still, Loved

When you realize that you are different from the rest, you try to think of how it came to be, you try to figure out why it is the way it is and not the way it should be. You think of what might have made the difference and you try hard to ignore or […]

CategoriesFirst Love Our Stories

Turbulence

As always, she’s smiling when you see her, radiating a light you wished you possessed. She bends slightly to whisper something into the ear of a girl seated next to her. They both burst out laughing and lean in close as though to ensure no one else hears their conversation. “They’re adorable,” your friend sighs, […]

My first and only CategoriesFirst Love Our Stories

My First and Only

How we met was one of those peculiar encountersYou don’t expect much, and you got more than you expectedWe spoke and spoke, then it happenedI knew I liked you, I felt it within myselfI woke up every time to read your textsMy sleep filled with pictures of youMy defenses cried “MAYDAY!“My offenses bolted “NO WAY!” […]

Funeral for the Living CategoriesFirst Love Our Stories

Funeral for the Living

This kiss started three days ago when Ayo and I shared a handshake. Something happened when we touched skins and it lingered on after we finished greeting. Just like that, we were magnets, finding each other’s gaze from across the room and bumping into ourselves in a space that was small enough for a 3-year-old […]

A summer fling CategoriesFirst Love Our Stories

A Summer Fling

I saw her at the supermarket. She was standing with a group of people dancing and acting silly without caring who was looking. She was so light-skinned, hard to miss. I was amazed. I was looking at the most tomboyish person I’d ever seen in Lagos, in Nigeria, in my life! She had black locks, […]