the small finger of water poking close, as with everything
subjected to rot. we sometimes come to the place where
we are first humans, before pain makes its way into us
like bacteria, like the spearhead of smoke in a keyhole.
and so, in this other life, I am bedecked in grief, hurling
questions at the universe. a small storm yeasts in me
with the debris of the days when I was either measuring up
with the rest of the world or firing canon balls up
an aurora ambience. in this other life, I am leaving
home in search of my place in time. in the flesh of obsession,
I am undressing to the sticky details of
femur and the veritable truths of self: the voice and the vacuum,
the conduit of smoke-stained vision; earth, body, ocean of lonely pebbles,
the music of youthfulness frothing with the days empty
as the black hole of estrangement, as the lyre of grief, the diminutive
fragments of soul and splintered glass. I carry on as the rivulet that
pours into the stomach of the sea so that no grief is wasted, so that no
anthem of insufferable sorrow goes unnoticed.
Goodnews Karibo is from Rivers State, Southern Nigeria. He travels the earth gathering stories to tell Kaleela. His works have been published by African Writer, Stone of Madness Press, PaperCrow Lit, etc. On Twitter he is @goodnews_karibo. On Facebook: Karibo Goodnews.