Sprout

By Ejiro Elizabeth Edward

I am earning loss as an inheritance

Despair is a betrothal of life & death
& my best friend is growing
towards her extinction

The doctor announces a new cell sprouting,
coiling itself into her bone marrow

like a snake on a branch hanging for its dear
life, (even venomous things are afraid of death)

She chuckles when I panic, she opens and cracks
jokes like she is cracking eggs,

makes a joke of becoming a ghost and I want
to wail, she has always been the lighter one.

I am learning that grief has no language,
It slices my tongue when I want to weep &

She ends up comforting me, her hands a ghost
feel of what they once were, her hair falling like trees in autumn.

It is January and I am waiting for the dust
to sweep in, I imagine her body falling into

her grave like paper, like leaves,
like water hitting the ground,

’cause like gravity, every living thing
that grows can’t outlive the force of death.

BIO:
Ejiro Elizabeth Edward is a student of the University of Benin. She is a recipient of the SBMEN fellowship and has been published in Feral Magazine, IceFloe Press, Agbowo, Kahalari, amongst others.
She loves to dance, travel and look for her friends’ trouble.