This is how you become stranger

in your own body:

First, your name is something

that doesn’t belong to you;

It’s the expectations hanging around your neck,

gloomy like a hangman rope.

Worse still, like a leash,

it leads you down the road

to what you’re supposed to be.

Two, you bang your head

against the wall

and get amnesia, all in a bid

to escape the confines

of your name.

The cage’s bars are invisible,

but you feel them inside,

a bird that must be in a box.

Three, your body speaks

a plethora of languages,

so much that the fight is unending.

You’re an island

and you’re not.

Maybe you’re just nuts.

Four, you don’t know

what you’ve become;

a shadow in a box?

a name for a corpse?

You walk down the street,

so numb you do not feel your hands

or your insides.

Your body says, “hello stranger.”

Samuel Ogechukwu is a writer and poet who has taken quite a lot of interest in the Speculative Fiction genre. While he does not exactly consider himself a poet, he does dabble into poetry, and the results, sometimes, amaze him. His stories have appeared or is forthcoming in Mukana Press, Kalahari, Ngiga Review among others. His only published novella, A Hundred Tales, is available on Amazon and Okadabooks.