Shango

by Chioma Okereke


Unspoken statements
Reverberate off your back
And    harpoon
   Our        silence
They say 'Absence
Makes the heart grow fonder'
But your abstinence
Makes my anger stronger
I wonder-
If you ever cared for me at all
As walls
Of ambivalence
Shield us from our former selves…
Some forms of violence
Cut more deeply
  Form scars    that will never heal
Only time   will reveal
If there's a lesson
          To be learned
From angled shoulders
Obscuring my vision +
Reflecting prisms of darkness
Where once there was light…
I'm right - aren't I?
That you never really loved me-
Just fell in love
With your reflection
   In  my  eyes
I stood there watching
While you Oedipized
Fed me up with lies
Until my belly burst
I cried so hard each night
My mother's eyelids hurt
I'm right - aren't I?
That you never really loved me at all
Just fell in love
With your reflection
   In   my  eyes
I stood there   frozen
While you hypnotised [me]
Slipped between my insides
Softly
Took me to the borders of ecsta-sea
Then left me stranded on the shores alone
See -
I was born
Or so I thought
To echo your rhythm
   + sing hymns thru your lips
While you were drumming
Beats from djembes on my skin…
Tattooing my body's possession
Drowning in yeses
From your body's blessings
       Oh yes-
There is a lesson
        To be learned
Stand next to naked flames
And you'll get burned-
Now naked truths burn
Revelations
On my soul
As I stand before
Whole      But Empty
[Yet] still reflecting love.


Shango by Chioma Okereke

© Copyright 1999. All rights reserved. No portion of this work may be duplicated or copied without the expressed written consent of the author.


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