I ran left in a short vivid dream
When I was climbing up the flight of stairs
It was a flight of wide white marble stairs
Or so it did seem
But when I got to the top and turned back
Behind me was a steep drop
And a collapsed garden green from top
To bottom and no way back.
I found myself in the backyard of strangers
So I jumped over the cactus hedge
Onto the dusty brown street’s edge
There to hurry towards new dangers
Knocking on the locked red gate
Where a hurt soul had declared war
On the community I don’t know what for
But to escape is now too late.
Is it a dream or is it a mix-up?
I haven’t even told you how this one began
But the staircase disappeared and a man
Said you can’t leave yet and I woke up.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river