Ghost Town
I can feel the ghosts flying across my window.
You dare not step into the streets; any street.
They’ll welcome you with gloomy smiles
The noise of their silence will deafen you
You might be charmed, by the beauty of their silence,
But you dare not linger, they’ll come for you.
My town is filled with ghosts
One, two, three, several of them,
We walk on tiptoes and
any strange sound has us cowering…hiding.
We peer through our window panes
As if we are prisoners, as though this street isn’t ours
We have no choice; we’ve let them take our rights
My streets are filled with ghosts
of different calibers, the young and old.
We look at each other in suspicion, thinking;
this might be a ghost, a new one.
One that will burn our property, everything…
One that will cut our roads
or throats? Turning us to new ghosts
Our different ghosts, they don’t understand each other
What will happen when this ends? It will end.
Will these ghosts assume back the human form?
Will they be okay being mere humans?
How does one forget the taste of power?
How do you ignore the sweetness of it?
Will things ever turn to normal?
Where would our resolve come from?
We need to find a way
We need to take back the rights we gave them;
These streets are ours, they belong to us.
I am Njolika. There are ghosts in my town-Bamenda.
If you don’t like ghost stories, you can check my other stories:
