Maybe you will be a chronicle that none reads
Except the one who makes the entry
Or you will be a Facebook post
Few will skim through
Their fingers automated
To click the like button.

I don’t know and cannot tell
And don’t care what you will turn out to be
Because all I need now is a sponge to absorb
These emotions churning inside of me.

The question I ask is can you be that sponge
Not a two inch or four inch
Or even the ideal six inch sponge, NO.
Can you be twelve inches
(Are there manufacturers who make
twelve inch sponges?)
I don’t care.
All I need is for you
To be a sponge this evening.

It is raining again. Hard. Fast.
I stand under the crying skies and cry with the heavens.
No matter how hard I cry, the skies cry harder than I.
The howling wind drowns out the howling of my soul
It is ferocious in its anger
ripping and shredding my dignity
till I shiver in my nakedness.

Still I stand, daring her to throw me down
My tremor riddled body defying the law of gravity.
For every action there is
An equal and opposite reaction.
That’s the voice of my physics teacher
Tangling with the refrain of
“It is well with my soul”

The murky waters rush
Louder than Karuma falls on a dreary tropical evening
The silt hits my feet but I stand planted
A colonial flagpole on the African continent
I don’t care who owns this turf
It now bears my mark.

The angry sword of the creator flashes across the sky
Cutting across the heavy cloak of darkness
For a moment I stand in stark contrast
To the angry elements around me
Drenched, dark, misplaced yet standing

I don’t care who you are
This is who I was
This is who I am
This is who I will be
If I can defy nature
I can defy you!

***

Link to the Italian translation