I am looking for a poet to tell my story

I am looking for a poet

To tell my story

There are too many eulogies trapped in my mouth

And one by one

I want a poet who can untangle my silences

And ooze them out into a poem

And in this poem

I am supposed to confess and regurgitate this dead thing out of my mouth

And call it a kind boy’s innocence being dragged into a battlefield

In this poem, I am supposed to explain why this playground is now an open feast

That ushers everyone to feel the need to beat my heart to death

In this poem

You will hear the blood speak

You will hear the innocent dying

You will hear the children weeping

And the fathers falling

And the generations starving out of love

In this poem

My truth becomes their lies

Their lies become the truth

The devil becomes the prophet

The innocent becomes the guilty

And the guilty walks home to eat dinner with his family

Ha

I bet you know what this pregnant poem is about right

So many cooked-up condolences waiting to feed the mouth of tomorrow

So many framed-up names fortified into memories

And statistics rising up and down like some tired prostitute

So many exterminators placed between traffic lights

Waiting to immortalise kills into metaphors

Let it be known

My body has become home for your guns and knuckles

I know how to tame fire into my veins

And dress them up into funerals

How to play hit on the playground

Strike after fight after strike after fight

I have, I have grown thicker bones on my fist now

Because I know I am almond-skinned

Because I know my timidness is the first weapon you see

Because I know when it’s my time to be loved

You see love goes out on a diet

Can’t you see

I have swallowed enough silence to kill me

Can’t you see

My tongue has become the sanctuary

Where the light meets the ending

Do you see why my voice is so fluent with grief

So poised that it can make death slip from my fingertips

My inability to swim in their water is the secret everyone knows

Now I see so many drowned-up bodies questioning the ocean

I see so many mothers teaching their sons about masculinity

Than they teach them about survival

Almond skin, there is fire under this mountain

There is fire under every inch of soil I stand on

And water surrounds me everywhere

So I bend my brokenness to the mercy of this water

But this water will not save me

This water wants to drown me

Completely