Scars

If you’d walked the doorway of my mind
and saw my light surrender
to darkness
Saw that sneaky twin twined in creation
Your indifferent lips would’ve dared not call me a psycho and a nutcase

If you’d understood how death strays not from its constancy
And how no eye peeks wholly, at what roams in tomorrow’s heart
Remembering this, should’ve caused
you to cultivate compassion
and dared not label me the cursed or possessed one

If you’d believed how every bit and piece of your being
is vulnerable to breakdown in its order, one time or other
You would’ve seen how you too could be a victim like me
to mistakes or misadventures
and dared not call me a wacko

If you had bore scars; glaring or unseen/ some real or perceived
and had been shackled up and forced
to gaze at dancing images of gloom
Cobwebs warped around your head
in symphony of thundering voices
You would’ve dared not call me a loose cannon

If you’d looked hard and saw how thinly the lines runs
Between your ability to stand and stumble; speak or fumble
In just a slip or flip of fate , or flip or flop in your securities
You’d have dared not call me a loose bolt and cuckoo in the head

Your nonchalances, my dear friend,
would’ve neither sent me down
the abyss
nor let your sensitivity hear my silent screams
and not catch me before my catastrophic fall
Your little sympathy to inject belief
Into my disbelief
would’ve been the ultimate relief to my torment
From one who’d dared not call me
A knuckleball, a schizo and a zombie

® 2020, Samuella Conteh

SAMUELLA J. CONTEH is from Sierra Leone, West Africa. She is a writer, poet, dramatist and motivational speaker. She is a member of the Sierra Leone Writers Forum and Member of Board of PEN-SL.  She is also President of the International African Writers Association in Sierra Leone.

Samuella’s poems and short stories have been featured in several national and international anthologies.

She has also received many awards including the Medal of Ambassador de Literature (ADL), Award of World Poetic Star, Award of Mahatma Medal, and most recently, the Order Of Shakespeare (OOS).

Samuella is also a member of the Motivational Strips Academy of Literary Excellence and Wisdom (MSALEW).