The Tale Of A Boy Who Is Kept Awake By Darkness

This night, the rain has come to perceive
the number of wounds I got from my grief.

A soul has lost its home.
I sing to this soul that feels odd.

In a world brimming with peculiar things,
a kid sees nothing in the dark

but a house brimming with eyes.
Sometimes I long for a day

the story of this day would be told
to an unborn piece of him;

of how the dread darkness,
thick like a sacrificial forest

bearing the blood of an innocent soul
keeps him awake, has made him

a watchman of his body.
So, rather than lying in bed

holding on to perceive what the pregnant
darkness needs to convey,

He sits outside in the street,
burning tyres till the smoke

becomes horrendous hoping it'll scare
the thieves away.

This soul feels suffocated in his home.
In the event this soul takes charge

of his home back, it shall tell a tale of the body
which darkness has kept awake.

Muhammed Bello

Nigerian

I'm a student of Education and English language. I volunteer for charity. I was shortlisted for Punocracy prize for satire, 2020. When I'm not writing, I'm heavily thinking.