Poetry

mo2she photo

By

Michael Ifeanyi Akuchie

Slow Down

I have read the story etched

with lines across your palms,

hard as rock, your palms are bodies that

have survived blistering heat and

harsh blizzards.

You are always running away from your body

because to you there is always that

hole in people’s hearts that you commit yourself to filling.

You are always

quenching the fire eating up

others’ houses but

yours is almost gone to the greedy touch

of negligence.

Pause… Hold still and

for a whole day worship your skin.

Let your own worship

awake the glory long dead in your body and

expel all the memories

of wanting to run towards arms

that always broke you.

Learn today that

forward is forward and forging

ahead without time

to adore the

cities that form the whole of you

is writing doom on your skin.

Michael Ifeanyi Akuchie

Michael Ifeanyi Akuchie is a poet whose works have appeared on Aceworld, Storried, Dwarts Online and elsewhere. He writes from Lagos.

He loves to be left alone. He fancies having a decent conversation every now and then. He has a thing for cats. He studies English and Literature at University of Benin, Nigeria.