LIKE A FISH, I AM SLEEPLESS
Like a fish, hovering in the river,
Day, Noon and at Night,
I am sleepless!
I am sleepless seeing poverty turning
best friend to people in my yard.
I'm restless going to bed with echoes
of the raped little girls so audible in my head.
I'm sleepless remembering the Chibok school girls
will never come visiting again;
Not even the generation to come!
I'm actually restless hearing Mama's heart
palpitating against her chest at every slitest sound.
I'm sleepless remembering how Papa will have
to face again, this moon, like every other moon,
the fidgeting drama between nineteen-five,
and the engulfing hunger of five children,
amidst the excruciating skeleton of Seven.
Like a fish, I am sleepless, each night, every night,
on remembering, I maybe the next on the list
to be picked for the ghost of millions for a ransom.
Like a fish, I am sleepless, each time, all the time,
on thinking how the seat of power could be so lawless
in chasing citizens into her set traps, claiming
the cubicle behind DSS is the safest place for them.
My head aches,
my heart bleeds,
my soul trembles and
my eyes reject sleep
like cows' in search of green herbs in the day
each time I remember how we lost our first name
and become second citizen to history
in her safety, peace and hope.
This is why I can't sleep. Tears of my raped country;
the land of my fathers had refused to cease from surging
like ants around sugar-cube in my bleeding eyes.
Like a fish in the river, I am sleepless,
and will always be until the "Clean Ghost"
cleanses my bereft land, the land
of my forefathers and make it new again.
(Dansabe Kuni)
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