Self-portrait As A Multicolored Canvas

by Precious Uwen

Nigeria

/i am to you, what you find out. i am

a soul leaving the body. when i speak,

i sound like a broken record. do not

expect the sea to become dry land. do

not expect forests to morph into

desert lands. what i am cannot

change because i am what i am. this

is the way i make peace with myself:

i look up to the skies and wish all of

the stars fall this night. i want to run

away. i want to feel free. like a

breeze, like the ocean, like a newborn

shaking their little legs and crying. i

am staring at the heavens and crying.

no one believes me when i tell them

that i see myself beyond the heavens.

they'd say, how does the living know

that they're dead? what is death, if not

an end, and a beginning? when one

meets their end, they meet their

death. when one meets their death,

they meet a new beginning. there is

chaos in all of our lives. time and

time again, i have died. time and time

again, i have lived. i consider nothing

else truer than death. it is what will

come. i like to watch the

dying of candlelight, the setting of

the sun, the resemblance of my pain

heard from the lips of another, the

relapsing of a vibrant sea wave.

young lad, is your beauty leaking

out? my dead father tells me in a

dream: take my burden. use it to fill

in those places that leak/.

next: jaachi anyatonwu - for boys who are adams of pain ✿ →

✿ back to issue ii ✿

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