My uncle explains why his knuckles are full of scars

By Ehiorobo Derek

My body is a wild flower that only blooms at night. When the day comes, I rise with the sun, you see, I consider myself its student. I have always been given to combustion. Once, when I was 13, I threw a fistful of termites into a flame & watched it dance with glee.

I am saying, I do not believe in softness. My father taught me to chew through ropes. I once watched him rip his shirt from my mother’s hands. I emptied my tear ducts that day & I have not cried since.

When you close one door, your body cuts open a new one. So, I wait for when the horizon swallows the sun to start my ritual of release. I create windows with my fists & lick the blood right off. Pain is an old friend I visit often.

I don’t understand you & your obsession with broken things. Beauty is not something I concern myself with all the time. Don’t misunderstand me, I have held butterflies & ignored the urge to crush. I know how to pick flowers & blow petals into the wind.

But I know not to dwell on one thing too long, & I believe there is something wrong with your generation. I saw a boy cry over a cut the other day. He looked at me funny when I asked if he has never kissed his own wound.

You are soft. I am trying to understand that, but I cannot respect it. A man should be a hammer & nothing else. If you fill your pockets with flowers, what will your lovers keep in their hair? Don’t misunderstand me, I know how to hold butterflies & sing to fading sunsets.

I sang to you when you were a baby — held you — thought of how even fire at one point needs a gentle touch to grow. I looked at my sister with eyes as dry our father’s palm & you wiggled your nose-yawning. Your wings — fluttering.

BIO: 
Ehiorobo Derek is a writer, poet, and spoken word artist. His work has been published in the African writers review, Praxis and the How to fall in love anthology , by Inkspired Nigeria. You can find him on instagram @derekimagines, where he writes poetry for a small community of literary enthusiasts.