RASHEED AYINLA SHEHU
For Farooq
Aisha said you’re born with a
silver spoon in your mouth,
But wondered how termites could feast on it
while your stomach rumbled to the rhythm of worm bites
& your intestines became sieves with jagged meshes.
Perhaps happiness were water,
Some weren’t made to taste or feel it.
I thought of a metaphor to engrave the mystery
of destiny, of life on a plaque,
& the thought itself blooms into a mystery:
a boy who digs deep inside himself in search of his roots;
the roots, his father, look up the sky for sign of where he planted the seed
& the place, the mother, is now bits locked in the bellies of worms underground.
One needs not be told this is an equation of inequalities.
Today I think of myself, & it is in the third person pronouns:
This is meant to be so; it will be as decreed;
As if my being were a shadow of a ghost I, myself, must distance from.
Perhaps this is how to think of destiny:
It’s a part of you — scripted — currently dislodged from you.
Que sera sera – what will be will be.
But some Que never sera —
For whole is how Farooq was supposed to be
But was denied the being.
Or, that, too, is destiny?
Rasheed Ayinla Shehu (RAS) writes from Kwara. He is an undergraduate of English and Literary Studies, University of Ilorin, where he majors in Literature. His works have appeared on the Kalahari Review, the Fiery Scribe Review, Afrihill Press, the Stripes Magazine, World Voice Magazine, Unilorin Iserh Chronicles Magazine. He tweets @Ras0690, and can be reached through the email: opeyemiabdulrasheed9@gmail.com