POETRY ON MEDIUM
The Melody of Grief
Loss is alien until it isn’t.
I initially intended, wrote, and entered this poem into a journal publication that didn’t materialize. I am publishing it on Medium because when I wrote this, I had never had a deep encounter with the loss of someone I loved deeply but now I have. Whenever I read it, the poem seems more alive than ever. So I rewrote and edited.
It is drawing up on a year since I lost Blessing and it’s taking every willpower I have to not cry as I write this. I wonder how her dad and brothers are doing. I should call. It’s become easier to look at her pictures now. Tempus volat but this wound is healing slowly. I don’t think I’m in a hurry either.
Trails of tortured whispers
paints shadows and decay…
I forgot how to breathe in a sea of tears.
What is grief if it is not consumable?
What high is possible from staring at this coffin?
Littered with decorations of blood, bones, and cartilage.
They lied.
How is it a mass funeral when the birthmark on your pinkie screams my name from the pile?
How is it goodbye when there were no farewells?
These new mornings, I compete with the birds;
singing our love song with a cobwebbed tongue of denial.
As though I can look across and caress your sleeping face.
Mother warned me of everything,
everything except loss and its eternal pangs;
loss and its bitter fangs.
Every lost and found page is another painting of your face
Mother taught me to yell; Yeh!
whenever the couch kisses my toe or my hands are caught in an unplanned meet and greet with the sizzling pot of egusi soup,
but she didn’t tell me what to say when half of my soul lies six feet below,
or when Red Earth clothes it forever.
She taught me every language,
except the language of grief.
If only I spoke it fluently,
Maybe, just maybe…
Thanks for reading!
Thank you for reading and supporting MuserScribe. We publish five days a week — Monday to Friday inclusively 🖋️🌟📚
