Your friends are shape-shifting into miracles
and you teach your tongue not to explain
your smallness.
Won't it be redundant to keep pretending 
that there is a season for everything?
Your wild life has known no seasons
and all you want to do is smile until it is time
for crashing.
For returning all the soft happiness you'd borrowed.
It is no longer a divine spirit; it is you
who roams above the still black waters
seeking inexistent soft things.
Adrift. You could be cradled by the gentle wind
which is always asking for something.
A sip from your cup of memory. The most
important teeth of your laughter. The only thing
that keeps you living in hate and dying for love.
Your neighbour has enough meatstew for his dog,
but you had just killed your dog for a meatstew.
It really makes no difference. People feeding what 
they have. You killing yours.
Everyone finds a way to live. And in the end,
it is nothing. It is everything.
All you want is to keep singing as you take the lonely
way to your flowered grave.

About the Author:

Daniel Echezona is a writer and student of the University of Nigeria. His writings have appeared or are forthcoming in ANMLY, Afrocritik, Brittle Paper, and elsewhere. 

Feature image by Maxine yang on Unsplash