THE SON OF A NOBODY.



I'm the only one left in this room to cry of something I know nothing of. I'm the only one cloaked with the silk of silence and with the memories flowing ashore the seas of my face -yes, I'm the only one you see in this room cloaked with the silk of silence and lost. I was in the market yesterday, and the market told me how I smell like a rotten food stamped on the corner of its shades. I was in the stream yesterday and the stream told me that my father was a nobody and the water is not meant for sons of a nobody. You see, the breeze refused to come to my house because I'm a nobody born by a nobody. I borne the identity of a nobody holding the thought of a nobody in the body of someone else.

How do you live in a body of someone's else and still remain a member of a mysterious man tilting himself into a home of many colours? How do you smell the flowers in your palms and return them home with the hope of living again? I will wait for you, I will wait for you till forever, I will wait for you to understand that this earth is a combination of confidence and control of muse.

This room is the beginning of my failure and self-doubt. It was where my self confidence first failed me yet I won't give up in this same room that have seen my unclothedness once and twice. This is another battle field for my silhouette, & a fertile field for river of chirps flowing the beaks of tired birds. You won't understand this because papa left his tattered brain in your hand. You won't understand this because mama shifted your thought before she died. You won't understand this because the dogs are no longer barking to your stupidity. You won't understand this because to be human is to love human like us whom the world has rejected.

Dear heart, I might not come today but I will be with you again after the name of the sunshine, after the state of emergency, after the game of thrones has proven to be the last game the world would think of playing.

it is okay to cry in this room- i grew up here in a cradle steaming with tears
and an array of haunted photographs smeared with vignette & filters from dark shutters. I grew up a boy - sculpted a song from with lyrics of the only language i learnt here; i sing, sometimes with the wind dancing
to my melody. I don't know what the future brings but dear heart, I will wait for you. I won't bounce your call to the evening of snoring pains. I won't paintakingly tell you to go. I will always pray for you night and day and every seconds. I am going to miss your smile but promise me you will be mine. I will come back for you and I will follow you till the finish line. I will be so far away but promise me that you'll wait for me.

When sister left the room for another room. I moved her cupboard far away from mine. I moved her black curtain and hold on to the ancestral spirit of our thoughts into the lives of those she left behind. Her child and her dolls. Her husband and her mother in-law. I was able to change the television channel. I was able to watch the horror behind her smile. I was able to change the way the room look like. You see, life is a letter from our lips. Life is a triangle of you and me, life is a ghost of needs. She taught me patience and understanding and persistence and personal education. She taught me how to hold onto the image of a nobody to become somebody. I shifted her smile to the other side of the room. Her shoes I moved to the toilet. I don't want her daughter to wear them. I don't want her daughter to see them and weep. I don't want a resemblence between the formal and the later . I don't know when I am coming back but I will keep myself for you and me because I'll come back for you, I won't leave you in dire need, dear heart. promise you will wait for me, dear heart.


You see I will miss the laughter in the room because Ugonma will be no more. I muted the radio for her sake. I stopped the fan because of her. I think the gecko on the wall came looking for her the last time I saw it crawling to the yonder of the room. I'm the only one left in this room of symbols. This house papa built. Everyone has gone with a deserted goodbye, with an unseen laughter. I told Amaka that she should learn to raise Humans, not genders. I saw her separating the boys from the girls.

They said I'm a son of a nobody and I have no business being in the village meeting because my father never had acres of land filled with tubers of yam. He never had goats, cattle and fowls in his field but does the road that father followed yesterday determines my fate in life? If you come tomorrow and see me no more, just know that the channel has changed itself.


©John Chizoba Vincent
#LiquidWords.