Poem: My Neighbour Is Dead

By Chinecherem Veronica Enujioke

I

My neighbour, Dee, does not pray. He burns scented leaves in the morning. He says it's the only thing that numbs his pain. He adds a lot of sugar to his tea to forget what names his people scarred his body. Say a nonentity, a bastard, a lost cause. So, he breathes a bad breath and curses his mother's people. He exiles himself to escape the curse.

II

In the afternoon, Dee plays a solemn song. This song melts into waters and flows into my room. They become a boy playing a flute for his mother at a stream. I touch the tears on his face and taste them. Salty. Blunt. Grief. Many a name for sorrow. Each lyric moulting into fire.

III

In the night, the boy is grown and embraces me in my sleep. I walk with him up this mountain, each pace. He tells me of his scars, the names they called them, the things they did to him, the one on his nose. I wake up bare, longing to reach.

IV

Dee's gone. The air reeks of burning books. I touched an ash the wind sent me. I read the blurred lines. I became the ash. I morphed into his room and I found him. He is gone and his nose bleeds. Even in death, his body does not fail to exude the hate that consumed him. My neighbour, Dee, is dead.

Image credit: Pngtree