What single thing do you reach out
for in the dark hallway of your head steeped in chaos?
Do the days unwind through bouts
of jagged edges of depression? The smudge of ruin
long after the pain has gone.
Like nursing an emptiness in an emporium crammed
with active people. Running your hand along
the fluffy length of schizophrenia. What smokes your
anxieties up in the air? In what genre
does the mongrel of your warring insides stay eloquent?
You cannot sit by and watch people go
in and out of life without jumping into the queue. every
breathing thing gets bruised by its own
existence; by its own gruff trajectory. believe your soul
when it flutters about the lake of
wonder. Pass your body around the music that is both
twig and fragment of hope. Enter this
wounded earth as though you hold the keys to all the
places awake with gleaming survivals.
Let gloom morph into a ballast, a raven buoying a survivor
to land. Let the little broken windows
pave the way for shafts of succour. You embody
inexhaustible pellets of courage;
a harbinger of might, flecks of warmth around the lampshade of strength.
Goodnews Karibo
is from Abua, a minority group in Rivers State, Southern Nigeria. His writing explores the enigma of everyday life; the position of humanity in the scheme of things. His works have appeared in African Writer, Brittle Paper, The Renaissance Review, etc. Connect with him on twitter via @slendergrass.