SOLITUDE

SOLITUDE – By John Chizoba Vincent

These cascaded tears are black in complexion,
I started arranging them when I was fourteen.
These broken stars are the horizons of fear,
I started numbering them when I was ten.
These words were the scars seen
in the smile of my mother after my father left,
I started counting them when I was only six.
Mother left at a tender age leaving me in the hands of the wind.
Father was killed on the battlefield,
I held my fate myself and they fell like a pack of sands yesterday.
Tomorrow is the spaces between my fingers,
Today is the map of gory miseries that have come,
I learnt the act of singing a lullaby at the sight of walls of emptiness – Solitude.
How did we become pains in the eyes
loving like the hungry wolves in the jungle?

Those that know me knew where to find me at the river bank,
by the dark corner of a dark room, remembering the torture of yesterday,
remembering a hole created inside of me,
remembering a piece of meat left in the mouth of the lion for me to pick.
when night call, I shivered and cried for another illusion to be created,
when it is dawn, cursed blessings come to play;
I carry ghost of darkness in my right pocket,
I carry death in my left pocket,
I carry him out, talk to him fiercely;
“when are you coming for me? ”
I have learnt to leave my body like a shadow when pained to roam about,
For those who have answers to natures call,
I have learnt to sip silence from the rhythm of their heartbeat.

Kiss and touch these pains, they are made from days of lonesomeness.
riding from the skin of the sky to find home,
like a lost elegy, like a lost dirge,
like a child searching for a home…
I am a lone man jagged and clinkered,
I am a lone fox and a magma lion,
I’ve been broken twice, once and forever,
The probability of me getting ramshackle by the shackles of desperation is tabled on the fracture of fins.
I am a lone man!
I am a lone man
Soaked in sullied nipples of anger!!
I am a vain man
Lowered by low esteem
I am a forgotten song of imperfection
for I wallowed idly in the darkness of my thoughts alone.
walking and watching my shadow angry…
talking and counting the steps of my lips
I attuned to the simpering ruse of zephyr when cascades of questions saunter the streets of my mind.

I am a lone man!
I am a man riggered by life choices
harrowed my limp soul like the incised opium’s root
Solitude is the name of my enemy here,
A sliced silence in the morning of my heart is an aching uncle of my household.
Hold your fears to your fingers
I will not bridge this game again
From this dice thrown, death drew nearer,
Till we start learning how to spell the lyrics of father’s dirge, solitude will always rule us all