Edwin Favour, Honorable mention for the 2024 Ogochukwu Ukwueze Prize for New Writers

Before I fall, figure holding onto dandelion.

My pride is a humbling jog,

I will walk away.

When my mother brandished an almost identical dupe

She called it regret

Said she forgot when to let go 

From her father’s house to mine

It’s strung her along

But I call it survival.

This haughty need to self-preserve

She says I should not make the same mistake

Shouldn’t exchange pillows with a man who makes me forget what it means to dream

Said he locked her escape route with a padlock ring

Says she laid it all to sleep at the feet of this man I call my father

Never mind my brother. 

It followed her everywhere

Made her a steady pouring of salt water

This Pride is my overflow drain 

The conceited refusal to cave is my survival instinct

A necessary evil

like a post-modern interpretation of the Devil 

The display of bad accentuates good

Like heaven and hell

A discreet juxtapositioning 

So when I hear ‘Pride comes before a fall’

I think,

There’s going to be a deep crashing 

And my pride is a mercy landing 

I wear it on my shoulder, pad-high

And parachute into the sky🔆


Edwin Favour is an avid reader who can best be described as an enigma. She is an Editor for Akowdee Magazine, an online literary magazine that publishes creative fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and literary reviews. When she is not writing or reading, she listens to music.