Shadows belonging to the people that have died inside me
form part of the weight I
carry around. I carry ghosts of former friends in my pocket.
Look closely, I burned my tongue yesterday after
spelling rejection on the skins of those I once shared quiet nights with.
The life I live is simple:
Build yourself the way a house learns to mould itself.
Contain rooms — plenty rooms.
If an occupant causes a room to rearrange itself
into a crazy shape, assume the face of bravery
and spit him out like a vestige.
You own yourself and
all the rooms inside your body. Your rooms accommodate
specks of your existence.
When a friend forcefully attempts to learn a room’s secrets because
you showed him the way in all shades of kindness,
chew him like bubblegum and expel him after
you’ve retrieved all the sweetened portions of your body
that was seized.
Michael Ifeanyi Akuchie is a firefly, writer, poet, story teller & Nigerian by origin.
His works have appeared online and in print on Praxis Magazine Online, Prose & Poetry Hood, Tuck Magazine, Dwarts Magazine, Ace World,
Storried, Syncity, Antarctica Journal & elsewhere.
He’s a recipient of the 2017 Black Pride Magazine award for excellence in poetry.
He studies English & Literature at the University of Benin, Nigeria.
VAGABOND CITY 