I am finally back in Warri. It is wet but it is not muddy. The noise of a lawn mower batter my thoughts as I write this. Again I wonder, why am I here?
There's no electric power. There has been no electric power for two years in this my part of town. Everybody is used to it now. Once it is 7pm, power generating sets will come on and the drone of engines will follow me all over my dream until 12am when even the small ones will go to rest. What was I thinking?
Now I wonder why I left Benin, why I left Abuja, what I thought I would find here in Warri. It feels so empty, so the same, so bland. I think I have made a mistake. I think that the
Grasses on concrete
Wave between the balls
Of mad men speculating
On the oily newspaper
That says that the roads are good,
That there are jobs in the city,
That there's light, life in the city.
The street lights are robbed
Of light and life
And now they stand
Like retirees
Waiting for the pension
Promised last year
To be given posthumously
On the corpse of forgotten names
And stale memories.
Grasses on asphalt
Hug the cracked facade
Of this forgotten space.
Signs still calling to the past;
A peeling, moss encrusted,
Yellow telephone booth,
A fire engine rusting peacefully
Like old men chewing tobacco,
A water tank standing phallic
But lacking semen to water
The throat of today.
This is my home. The only one I truly know. I have been away from this pain for too long and now it feels like I never left, like I will never leave. Everybody is trying to leave but me. I am the only one who is returning like a prodigal.
I have tried different wombs but Warri has given me much and I have suckled of her breast for too long. I have become institutionalized in the blood of my city.
I am yet to take off my clothes. I am yet to unpack my bag. Maybe I'd take the first bus tomorrow back to Abuja and never return or maybe I'd just stay and see if somehow, I can find something akin to life, to light in this dark, dead city.
Peace,
©warpedpoetic, 2018.