May 25, 2024

by CHOOLWE LUBAYA

A Ladder of Grief

You do not enjoy napping

in the arms of insanity.

Your mind,

like an avalanche of snow,

is littered with chaos.

Meaning,

you keep collecting events

that wrap aching around you.

Like a gong struck by metal,

your joints have learnt

the module of trembling.

Your heart pounds as if

there were a rumbling drum

in your chest.

This all stems from family

trauma.

One guardian feasting

his child’s heart

with pungent words.

Then, when it’s all grown,

the child passes on the hurt

to you.

You think,

Where do I find a psychiatrist?

*

Alzheimer

you wonder where your memory

has bolted to.

what is despair but

not recalling life that slid

out of your uterus?

you see a lady in her thirties:

you do not know whether

it is your daughter or

the laundry woman

or just a stranger.

you ask her who she is:

she says she is a Doctor

from a mental health hospital

trying to put your mind in place

like stray pieces of a puzzle.

you enquire from her

where the harvest of your womb

is.

she says

something about your daughter

being beckoned by

a never ending sleep.

hearing this, two streams

slither down your cheeks.

your emotions rattle to dust

at the hurdle of always straining

a thought.

Scientists have discovered a drug

to slow down Alzheimer’s Disease

the Doctor says.

you smile blankly

forcing a false expression

of knowing.

you then eye the rosary 

dancing between the fingers

of your right hand.

your lips try to mutter a prayer.

*

Cycling Emotions

This is how uncertainty

caresses you—

your shifting from this

emotion to that/

Bipolar:

1.

Today

you long to not

exist:

Shadows stroll

through every cathedral

that rests in your body.

2.

The next day

you feel the urge

to last a little longer.

This comes with peaking

adrenaline

swift as pee from

an unsheathed glans.

            **

You only wish things become better

with the meds striding down

your throat:

Your hope is on lithium.