Colours of home

I hear the call of / darkness when I lie/ in my
bed/ listening to the worship songs/ that sin sings
to my body/ God goes green but/ I am unruffled/ am I no
longer the spitting image of His? / I look in the looking mirror/
of river of dreams/flowing up the hills/ I remould my large mouth/
shorten my lashes/ plant dimples on my cheeks/ redraw my
tribal marks/and when I am done/ I cannot tell who the heĺl
I am/ darkness keeps calling me/ to come drink the blood
of all the ones I love/ from the chilling chalice of betrayal/ I stagger
down the dark isle where the alluring pull tugs/ at the nectar of being/
she asks why I am so scared to flow away with darkness/I say I do not
want to destroy everyone and everything I love/ she says darkness is the
most natural state of the world/ I say I want to live forever/ she says live is
evil turned inside out/ I say it’s not enough reason to embrace her darkness/
she says I am rejecting who I am / and who am I? / she says I am
the perfect fusion of darkness and light/and all the colours in-between/
I say I am light only/ the son of the son of the son of the father of the
father of the father of my father/ hysterical
is the manner of her devouring laugh/she says the best of birds/ are the ones
whose wings are joy and sorrow/I say sorrow is heavier than lead/ she
breaks off the right wing/ of the bird in her hand/ and gifts it to the sky/but flight
is a fallen pin/ that a leprous hand/ will never pick/ the bird flaps her joy
before falling still/ the earth opens her palm/ where a lone canoe sails/ upon
the sea of darkness/ to destinations unknown/ the thing in the heart of a traveller/
is a compass gunning for perfect climes/ but there are no blameless lands/
only brown pastures looking green across the sea/ and when you sight/
the saner clouds/ the paddle breaks/ and on one foot, traveller, you/ will step
into the land of dreams/ where darkness lies famished on longing roads/
carry a paint bucket of green and a brush/paint your pasture/ if it
turns out brown/
the compass skips a beat/ before losing the memory of / all the dark ways
winding endlessly / through the wild wide world/what does
it matter so long you paint this land/
the colours of home

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Poem: Idowu Joshua Omidire
Image: Valentin Lacoste Unsplash/Hans Pixabay