How Can We Write To Them
after they’d handed their portraits
down to us; had made themselves
hermits in some doorless rooms.
after their fears & tears had been
washed away into nothingness, by
the clouds of our poor promises.
that we fail them, that we’ve fallen;
we are sapless suckers? That we
have yawed to an ecdysial path, like
snakes; sloughed off their wisdom
robes? That we betrayed their
restless bones? The tweezer does
not fail in its duties–we failed, our
large eyes dwelt under the glasses
of darkness~darkness we mouthed
as the light. Years were long dead
before the birth of a new morning &
we see the light~light we mouthed
as the darkness. We are–now–
aliens in this place we call home;
suffering reaps our daily toils. Oh!
suffering is a mouse, gnawing at
our little grains of hope & we are
hungry; hungry for their portraits
to reincarnate over. Here, we don’t
call the falling water a rain, it is the
tears the sky sheds to mourn our
lost pride, fine follies & sad ironies–
and that’s the only way to tell them
of our wariness. Our palms still hold
some atoms of hope: our cries
would be heard, our tears shall
slake their burning ires & their
hearts will disgorge all spleens
towards us; a strainer cannot hold
water. But how can we write to
them, of our misdeeds that has
bloomed into sins that raised our
Sons, their Sons’ sons.How can we?
Arikewusola Abdul Awal writes from Oyo state. His poems have appeared on ila magazine, willi wash, Teen Lit journals, Literary Yard, Thirty Shades of Roses Anthology, Broken chunks of heart Anthology, and elsewhere.
When he is not writing, he is found reading or watching movies
