I.
The Loner
I should laugh the loudest in rooms,
I should make laughter à carnival stitched into human skin.
My teeth flash like the fluorescence of St. Mary’s Chapel
And they call me the light,
As I have I burnt for the survival of the congregation.
I should ask others how they are,
Because no one asks twice for me.
I should become medicine for wounded souls,
But again I take pride in being a temporary god of comfort,
While my own throne is overcome by thorns,
As I breathe asbestos and dust,
While time breaks a famine within my heartbeat.
One smiling,
One rotting beneath the smile.
I name neither as bad company,
The cheerful memory lingers in the palm of a six year old,
She counts and kisses them to the wind.
It touches the shoulders warmly,
Writes a part of beautiful things about hope,
The other sits cross-legged in darkness
Waiting to comfort the moment one fades away…
Sometimes they graze their shoulders together.
And I, Like a child between divorcing parents
Do not know whom to believe.
But to believe in the tutoring of my own solitude,
to have the art
Of dying
by subtle disappearances:
Sleeping too long,
Inside my own body.
II.
The Loner’s Bane
Sadness is honest.
It arrives weeping at the door
And leaves footprints on the floorboards.
It is performative
It is waking each morning
To resurrect your corpse with charisma.
To powder exhaustion into charm.
To sew sunlight into your voice
While thunder eats your bones.
The bane is hearing laughter
After your jokes
And realizing
You have become a machine
Built solely to keep others alive.
The bane is applause.
Because every smile they love
Becomes another nail
Holding the mask in place.
And the voices
that crawl like insects beneath your scalp.
Obongofon Etuk is a Nigerian poet, playwright, and pharmacist, with works published in journals such as Afrocritik and Brittle Paper. His writing is strongly informed by the Shakespearean school of thought, and he has a particular passion for exploring human existence and moral complexity through his verses. When not writing, he is an avid supporter of FC Barcelona.
Cover photo credit: berobscura