Black Boys Are Volatile
In a bleak midwinter, a boy masquerades his indifference
as only as a slight melancholy tinge,
–lied to by poets
whose names are now lost in history
that he is all the colours of the world in one full brightness.
The chords of his primal scream become the allegory
–for humans
that take his freckles to be the affirmative proof of insolence.
So to truncate this laundering of his soul & faith
–he becomes true to two.
Now take a guess, does he wind down on his flaws
or does he upsell his affinity for drowning in adequacies?
———-
I
I become forthright with my weaknesses
–as there is an art to flaws becoming freckles
& I am Michelangelo.
I carry grief with a verisimilitude
– that men whose name I carry were devoid of
“Ritwa Ni Mbukio, Gutiri Ritangikuria Mwana”,
I am a rarity – a diamond in the rough,
I wear mine only like a hideous cardigan.
I also question,
is it sage for broken people to embrace their brokenness?
& for the world rewards most of my impulses,
I am realised to be a figure of light, an Erithi poet.
———-
Poems: Frank Njugi
Image: Microsoft Co-Pilot AI Pixabay remix