Dear Grief.
Image by Jan Canty on Unsplash.
Dear Grief.
Sometimes, the emotions are not always knife-sharp. Sometimes, we cannot point to the scarlet bite
and say, this is where it hurts. Sometimes, the wound is just a wound. Dull. Lacking luster, lacking shine,
bereft of light. I mean, I have hidden everything seeking to prosper inside the dark of this body.
I mean, the mallet smashes into the stomach and spine, the body asphyxiating in shock waves—such bluntness.
You realize pain is simply pain, as malleable, as transformable as clay. For what, tell me, is this misery’s purpose
if not for the beauty that proceeds? The grey clouds precede the rain. The blood art, the vein. Even the
heavens know God dwelt in his anguish, in his loneliness, before Adam. Like how a room waits patiently
in its darkness, and in its waiting, romanticizes the breaking, the absence of light. I am that
dark room, beautifying my misery. Because why settle for that bleak superficiality? Darkness is but merely
the starvation of light. All these wounds, nothing but soft flesh unborn. Look at it— this body
more like glass, about to be filled with the morning’s gilded milk. This night, nothing more than dawns
sharp refrain. On my feet lies a bundle of feathers. They are only feathers, but I will pick them up,
will love them like a bird. And do they ever surpass that? Was Adam not still Adam even when he was clay?
Verily, intention is already sufficient life. Dear grief, hold me. Cherish me. Love me. I promise, I too, can sprout wings.
Art by Joel Filipe on Unsplash.
Impermanent.
There’s a god no one ever wants to
worship but always does in the end. Somewhere, a boy my age steps into
the velvety mouth of night and never
returns unto his father. Father, on
the phone, talks to the man— the one
whose seed has left the earth, offering consolation like hot water, like salt. The wounds, afresh.
Somewhere, I am that boy.
It is a macabre thing, I must say, to
imagine myself. To imagine the pitch of
the wail my mother will make when she
hears the news, when her eyes greet
the body. This must be my weird attempt
at empathy. But here I am, shutting the
room door, shutting my ears, tired. Of the wail. Of hearing my father on the phone
saying, “It is God’s will” over and over again.
Because if the only thing your god keeps
willing is death, how can you worship him? How are we not already in worship?
Tell me the day is red enough without
eating another boy. Tell me the boy
mangled on the road is not red. Tell me
the rose will not die in youth, that this
day will not become his last summer. I
am imagining a world where the boy goes
out to cut his hair and returns alive unto
his mother. Where the wail dies before escaping her mouth. Where my father is
not saying “I am sorry” on the phone to
another family friend. And the family is
not drenched in tears. Where I am not
scarred or scared. I am
on the bed, imagining.
Image from The Cleveland Museum of Art on Unsplash.
The Deer.
After Frida Kahlo
One thing about pain is the way it holds
the body either as death or healing.
And it is not certain which way it will
turn— the fester or the flesh. We are
human, after all. So hungry and full of
sin. It is this foolishness that makes us
think every anguish should end with
an open door. But sometimes the doors
are closed. Sometimes, there are no doors.
Sometimes, you are an animal caged
in the cells of your body. I have groped
to the edge of mine. But what did I meet
if not cement, if not another dark wall?
Where were you when I fled through the
forest, when the arrows made my
back a scarlet field? What did you do if
not sit and breathe? I do not blame you.
Nor the hunters who were itching at the throat.
Nor the body which wanted to be eaten.
We have to understand that the world was
born starving. Still starving— it is the only
language we know, this voracity. This claw.
This blood-ruined skin.
Art from Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash.
Unpatriotica.
First, you should know that I did not ask to
be borne in an Eden on fire.
It was the original sin, I know, my place of
birth. I complain and they say,
it could have been worse. Well look at all these
flames, what is worse than Hell?
What is worse than living in a land that made
a god out of my heat?
And what should I do with the country that
has given me wings,
only to clip them?
Should I hold her in my devotion? In my
love? In my hands?
The old man, yesterday, pulled his shirt.
Showed me the scars,
the stumps where there should have been
wings. And there,
I swore again not to live in this country.
Forgive me if I choose
the blue sky.
Forgive me if I thirst for air. Forgive me if I
ache for the lands
where the fields are capable of bloom*. Where
green is green.
And white is not accentuated with the color
of blood. Because the garden
is no longer a garden. And the forest, no
longer a forest.
And see all these smokes, all these cruel, blue
smokes, they wound me.
The asterisked line is attributed to
Chinwenite Onyekwelu