SHE STARED BACK AT US WITH HER EYES CLOSED
by Amarachi Iwuafor
She Stared Back at Us with Her Eyes Closed – First Runner-up of the 2020 Kreative Diadem Annual Creative Writing Contest (Poetry Category)
When death walked in, it took in its arms
one person,
walking past the tunnels where light had
never touched.
Then it left two footprints. One, grief. The
other, memories. I’ve felt pain,
but grief is twice the weight of pain. Our
palms have been stained by the colors
of it.
I touch the walls of my memories,
trying to remember
the last time we held hands. I search for her
in photographs
that once held the whole shape of her.
I heard she had wished to stay longer?
How often we grope for life
when we are close to death.
But most times, the life
we live is never ours, neither our choice.
At night,
when the world is dark, fears burn into
the walls of my room,
and in my room there are nightmares.
I keep dreaming into the places we
first met.
I am lost most of the night.
But as time moves like waters across the
shore
I build solace in these words:
People don’t die, they only lose their
bodies.
Photo Credit: Photo by Maksim Goncharenok from Pexels
