Spider webs bar many bodies
Protective of the house and marking unseen spider bodies
Dust covereth the terazo floor
…and the heavy wooden door
Ant moulds snake from the floor to the top
A daunting feeling warns heart to a stop
Once a home, I am looking at its shadow
Once embracing, I am seeing the unfriendly krado
II
I break it and neglect the angry sounds of the door
I enter and face the documentation of dust on the floor
I see spiders have been busy with their building even in the house
It doesn’t take long for me to see an angry mouse
…begrudging my intrusion of its rented building
With what did it pay for such a building?
III
In the mukyia are buried ashes
Dust suffocating it beneath its stashes
Mfɔtie have taken over the firewood which did not get to taste fire
And have ate and are still eating away to their desire
The walls show their burdens with cracks
As many a worms show their presence with their tracks
The sky, clear as a Black goddess’ face
…now frowns, oh my shock at its dark pace
IV
Three doors look at me with many a shut mouth
I know not where to start, east or west or south?
North hosts a doorless space
With blackened silverwares made pale with dust
Silverwares telling tales of unuseness with rust
I look left and right and back
…nothing gives clues as to the whereabouts of people
…my people
V
Then it starts to rain
The sky adding small stones to the rain
…to hit me hard
I yell and cry in song like a bad bard
And force the door to the left open
Only to have my past mind reopen
To see the smiles of singers
…singers whose voices wake a soul which lingers
A soul so sorrowed, making me feel sorry
…with worry
She asks why I was leaving
And who I was deceiving
She asks what I was looking for
And who I was leaving for
She asks why I have come back
And why I was looking stuck
She asks what I was expecting to find
And who I left behind to help me, that which I seek, find
I made to answer but there was no ink in my words
And certainly no papers for my sounds which lack words
And so I squeak like a mouse
…in that home turned house
VI
Then I felt it, mosquitoes on my skin
Then I felt it, bedbugs on my skin
Then I felt it, mouse around my skin
Then I felt it, fear creeping up my skin
Only to be slapped by a fall of something
A fall of something I know not
Then I felt I shift of something
A shift of something I knew not
Darkness had taken over the once lighted room of one with a deep voice
As a wailing eco makes a frightening noise
The rains drum on the tattered roof
The rains pelting me therein gave me the proof
VII
I had lived like a loved child
My mother, so loving, my father, so mild
I had lived like a beloved
But now I stand like a shattered
My youth yanked from my teenage exuberance
My thoughts filled with beloved remembrance
This house was good to me
Why didn’t I see?
Why did I give my all to another house?
Why did I drain my soul for another’s whole?
Why did I leave my own for another’s?
Who did I think will be in my forevers?
VIII
Tears are swallowed by the uncaring rain
As the heavens back its cruelty
I saw God get bored at my prayers, yawning with annoyance
As the angels watched with apathy
Did they send me to leave mine for another’s?
Did they force their choice on my will?
I shivered as I stood sadly still
I have lost it all
The smiles and laughter and play and love and light
I have lost it all
The normal hurts and advice and healthy competition and natural fight
I have lost it all
The care and tenderness and hugs and warmth
I have lost it all
Even my bed’s warmth
IX
So I step into the battlefield of the rain
And let it beat to my spirit drain
I try to lose my strength as I strain
But a force keeps my consciousness and my life’s grain
I try to shut my heart but my heart opens to be flooded
As pink flowers continue to shed on its rotten others from an Eastern Redbud
Great memories of freedom flood and within act crowded
As I wail and wept
While my emotions me swept
Into the flood of filth and dirt and baggage and breakages
As the house, which tried to tell me the story faced its leakages
…and caved in, as though it was waiting for me
Ending it all and disabling me
Only to wake in the cages of the street
Wearing many a sorrow with a crown of defeat
Thankfully it was a dream
That which I woke from with a sorrowful scream
Will it happen as I dreamt?
Certainly it shouldn’t happen as I dreamt!
Amoafowaa Sefa Cecilia © August 1, 2021
Mum Cee 