* — May 14, 2018
Boy /boi/: The Abbreviation of a Throne-less King—Part 3

Boy Made King /boi mād kING/
Noun.
1. The child, in its allotted time, relearns the making of a man, attempts to reform itself by imitation.
2. In most cases, the mother becomes a phantom limb of her offspring, an unseen gate from which theory becomes fact.
3. The boy inherits all there is to inherit: thought and crown, though, tends to forget who died and made him King.
 
King Made Child /kING mād CHīld/
Noun.
1. After releasing the self from this dimension’s many constraints (war, power, ascension, etc.) one finds themselves playing tag with their imaginary friend, an action which only those without experience can achieve.
 
Child Made Child /CHīld mād CHīld/
Not noun.
1. Though a being of nature, a housing complex of ‘kaleidoscopes & curiosities’ and other unidentifiables, “Child” formally enacts outside of form. It is neither person nor place nor thing, it is, however: (something we’ve forgotten how to pronounce)

Originally published in No Tokens Issue No. 4. View full issue & more.
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Nkosi Nkululeko has received fellowships from Callaloo, The Watering Hole and Poets House. He has performed for TEDxNewYork and the Aspen Ideas Festival. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee and finalist for both the 2016 Winter Tangerine Awards for Poetry and the 2016 Best of the Net anthology. His work is currently published in The Collagist, Third Coast, Pank, Apogee, VINYL, and more. Nkosi lives in Harlem, New York.