You Have Become a Thief of Your Own Treasure │ Omodero David │ Poetry

How much more gold / are you willing
To lose? Over and over. Night upon night.
How often do you want to keep being
a prodigal?
A wanderer between two freedom realms—
At night, an unhindered thief; by morning, a lad
With the liberty of meeting with God

In the full ease from your phone.
Right from your bed
You steal out of your self. And race with the swift legs
Of your wild mind.
As you run, You think of yesterday’s attempt
To go to that place,
Mum was there to stop you / with her stories.
But tonight. Not anymore.
With your heart screaming no! And your mind bounding slow,
Looking back again and again
At the love it left behind, you are determined to go.

Tonight, you thought, my hands must reach into that temple again.
And toy with that treasure. A treasure which is yours
So you’ve strangely become a thief / of your own treasure!
As your hands move,
and your senses groove, cloud nine this is! You think.
You moan that unholy ritual chant / as you’re painstakingly
rubbing off the gold coating from your treasure.
Then with a deep breath
like that of your last on Earth,
you cuddle the slimy smears of gold you’ve gathered

To wash them off in innocent waters.
Waters that weep your steady degeneration.
As they’re quite reluctant to wash off all the gold from your palms.
You see them (your watery wealth) linger, swaying in the downpour.
Somehow you feel for yourself too. For the kind of thief
you’ve now become. And that long deserved feeling
bites at you. Its cold venom spreading across
your temple / down to your treasure.

The images. Those honey-soaked female idols.
You had pledged your allegiance to them that night.
And spoke against them the following morning.
You might ask, how did i speak against them?
Think! When you joined your family in singing:
All other gods, they are the works of men, only you Jesus
Are the one true God. You sang on, the boon of last night,
an imperceptible burning hearth / beneath your tongue.
For the rooster will always bless the day
Because of the merriment the night has given him.

Omodero David is a young Nigerian writer and poet. He hails from Delta State and lives in the southern part of the country. His poem has appeared or are forthcoming in Pride magazine Nigeria, Barren magazine, Palette poetry, Afreecan read and elsewhere. You can reach him on Facebook@OmoderoDavid