Once he doesn’t care anymore
All the beauty in the world becomes a bore
Every tender touch pinches a sore
Promises of true love sound like folklore.

He walks out forever through the door
He totally overturns what he is living for
When he has been wounded to the core
Every woman now seems to him to be a whore.

Fitting in with the act turns into a chore
He rips off the mask which once he wore
The mask his heartbreak from his heart tore
And breaks away from the naive days of yore.

An angel or a demon? Neither nor.
Be yourself or die trying? Either or.
Whatever else life may have in store
He’ll carve his own way now to heaven’s shore.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

Poems from the inner river