Suffering Competition
Oluwagbenga Kolawole
the wind howls tauntingly in my ear
as I respond to your summons.
I run my fingers down my side,
over scars that my skin has now forgotten,
past my exposed rib cage, where you
reached in to borrow my heart.
Here, there is death, taxes
and glory. I daresay it is
one of the skins natural selection has taken—
Impress. Or die trying. And the ruthless cycle,
like yesterday, when I got hit by that truck
and walked it off. Or when my grandfather died
and snapped the boogeyman’s scythe in two
‘cause his time had not come yet, continues.
The ghosts in the wind,
harbingers of past chronicles,
brave men who served and starved in
ceaseless wars look on in silent disgust
as we struggle with school, taxes and inflation.
Real men don’t die hooked up to machines.
Like in their time, they die when a bullet goes
bone-void-bone through their skulls.
Oluwagbenga Kolawole is a poet, satirist and freelance journalist. In his free time, he dabbles in comic drawing and cartoon animation. He is a graduate of Communication and Language Arts, University of Ibadan. He writes from Abeokuta, Nigeria.