A Heaviness Lurks Around By Chabota Sibuku

Two streams marathon down my cheeks

as a stench of failure snatches wisps of Oxygen

from my lungs.

How do I count

episodes of laughter without running

into moments that rip my smile into morsels?

How do I laugh

without my throat shredding my voice into

debris?

Chunks of myself are sheathed in father’s chest.

Whatever he says wriggles my head into

a node—see what I meant

when I said that I own a spec of myself?

Here, we hide problems under our skin

and film the air with silence. We

freeze a little—

We learn how to nestle dragons in our belly

instead of a cluster of butterflies.

We waltz through earth laid with stubborn

dust that chock the better of our ego—

forgetting the fragile feather we’ve become.