Under The Bridge
As I sat by the fire and watched mother cook
She recalled stories of the dark ages
Whose significance are now lost
At nine, I ran away
Enough of these blackness and empty holes
I will not see again these fire woods
These black pots
I wandered east
As far as Ijora Bridge
Stopping at the edge of the black waters
That surrounds the National Theater
A year later
I had joined the men under the bridge
Bus conductor at daylight
Monster, smashing car windows at night
I’ve sometimes wondered whether
My brain is made of clay
The same black clay pot I ran away from
My origin still blurred and distorted
My destiny ever remote
What a transformation
I now fight like an ape
With my feet and fist
Bottles and knives
Changed my name from Uche to Segun
Big wrists, big hands
Brown teeth
Scares on my face
But my eyes still looks oddly innocent
Child of circumstance?
Born to suffer?
As years passed by
I metamorphosed
From an indigent child that lacked everything
To a monster that has everything
Yet, I have nothing
I had slept at the banks of the river
As we await the cover of darkness
To ride back to our dungeon
In a stolen canoe
After an unsuccessful overnight robbery
I had seen hulking figures
With sunglasses after dusk
Driving aimlessly in unmarked vehicles
Waiting for marked victims
In this city that is drifting
Pilgrims to unholy spots of Lagos
That never returned to tell their stories
Men on suite as sinister
As men under the bridge
Mother used to call me Nnam
When she though I was the one
The chosen one to wipe her tears
They used to call me Kekere
When I moved with the men under the bridge
I later choose Akwa Eke
I resonance with the rhythm
Emanating from my abode
Yesterday
While walking the dirty alley of Apapa
With hands in the pocket of my cheap coat
In search of a whore in the dark
I heard tongues I’ve heard before
I heard her call me Uchenna
The dark part of my brain was lit up
And the skeleton of my dead forefathers
Started turning in their graves
The whore happens to be kid sister – just turned fourteen
The hovering ghost of my dead mother
Ran forward with her spider-like fingers
And hung my head from an unseen rope
While urine darkened my trousers
I’m the bird
Crippled at birth
The headless dragon
That destroyed itself as elders watched
I’m that schoolmaster that can’t read nor write
The golden egg
That incubated in the bosom of wild creatures
The child, the gloomy future, the adult
With a tale of mindless violence
I’m the Nigerian child
© Churchill Okonkwo 2008
