OLUSOJI OBEBE

cw – domestic violence

A Vigil in the Navel of my Nightmare.

(For the late Nigerian Christian artiste, Osinachi Nwachukwu)

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that night, I tugged my body, on the bed,
to the direction of the noise. I thought I was 
in a nightmare escaping the claws of a hooded man.
but then I woke up to a heated vigil
that was going on in my next-door neighbour’s house. 

the woman started with a teary solemn worship but the husband would beat the drum of her heart hard
that she might start going to a breaking-point crescendo of praise, of beggings
with the children screeching the cymbals of their worries.

as it started,
the man kept beating, beating, and beating with sticks, belt buckles and fists,
and striking every beautiful strings of the woman
into deep wails. even as the children were screeching the cymbals of their worries.

still enjoying the splendour of his dexterity,
the beat tempo increased. wife modulated to soprano.
a perfect harmony of death.

so, he broke the woman into a piece of long unanswered supplications
and the fate robbed her faith of living, of even an iota of peace.

since vigil that night came with a brutal communion
I thought a sacrament of blood might have followed.
so I did the maths of a prayer with one of my farthest ribs
whereby one whose fire of judgement would answer
in the vigil room was equal to the lord.

and I went to bed,
sinking back into my nightmare where
the hooded man was lurking around
and trying to de-petal the flower of my soul
as though it was planted by him.

I lamented. 
everything soft as song
everything hard as nightmare
who would unman the savagery hovering over them?

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