Between two fingers,our palms and our lips
Lips quivering, fingers in spasmic dance, we desire that gust of life;
The wind rush, the gentle back rub given by the god that severe our umbilical cord
We yearn that life; birthed from mother’s womb when we first lived
But the travails of life has taught us to chase after illusions
To drink water from mirages
To seek refuge in blanketed realities
Life’s ordeals have taught us to turn our troubles into puffs of smoke,
And drown our worries in unmeasured cups of cough syrup
To measure our disappointments in stupor bottles.
Insecurity made us pawns on this hallowed court called life
Advancing towards insanity, only then do life wear mirth on our sloven face
We dance to our graves
Raising cups and drinking to the health of the earth that births our skin
“Why do fools fly?”, climb to the seventh heaven and take a nosedive, plummeting to their death.
Only that we never truly know of what we die;
Of our many trials and temptations?
Of our cares, fears, fanciful worries and trepidations?
We live and die daily!
Inbetween are the horrors from which we run,
And the ever elusive happiness to which we run.
But death is what awaits when she struggles under heavy palms, begging for salvation; her neck -clasped, her voice -lost;
She is the abused wife finding death under torturous alcohol sated breaths,
She is the young lady raped of her dignity and dreams
She is the little girl told to shush, with sweet and stick buried in her throat, and her tender thighs everytime ‘uncle’ send her on errands.
This is how we fashion life and death on the same embroidery of fate.
This is how life weans our lips daily, only to sing death’s mournful dirge with every repose
This is how we live and find death everyday.
