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Still yet to cry for you
You were 15 when I was 10
We called ourselves cousins because our parents were distant cousins.
Growing up as a sensitive child, I paid attention to the littlest details of things.
I studied your petit body ( a body size too small for a 15 year old), I stared at your teeth whenever you spoke and your fingers while you gestured. You had told me you got an overriding teeth because of your bad habit... eating with knife, a superstition our mothers made us believe. You told me your fingers got damaged in an accident.
I wondered why you looked so different, yet I was fond of you, we were fond of each other.
There were moments I watched you wriggle in pains, and your mom would groan too, like she was feeling the same pain you felt. I watched her feel for you while she pacified you to endure these inevitable pains that came almost everyday.
You were helpless in that state of despair, your mother was, I was too. Well, I didn't know much of what was happening then. No one could help. That deadly pain just had to come and go whenever it wished.
Your mother only prayed it reduced sooner.
Your innocent life rolled by into years with this burden. Unfortunately, not for long.
A year after, you turned 16 and I was 11.
My mother stood at the entrance of her room and dropped the bombshell, "Jide is dead".
My bare face bore no expression. I felt a lump in my throat, I swallowed hard and couldn't cry. Trust me, I tried to. There was no wetness in my eyes. My mind trailed off to the recent moment we spent together.
You had spent the holiday with us last month. You had taught me how to ride a bicycle, which I did finally learned after falling off and crashing my right knee against the rough wall fenced round the compound. You told me falling off was the only way I could finally learn how to write a poem.
How funny it is now.
You were gone, Just like that. I couldn't grasp how or why you had died. "Why did Jide die?", this question rang in my head for days.
You weren't even up to 17, the world was cruel to you, an innocent child.
You were just a boy, but it didn't matter to death. It took you regardless of who you were.
You died.
Now I'm 18, you would have been 23 this year, Jide.
I'm still yet to mourn your death, you live on sweet cousin.
© Adejumobi Oluwatomiloba
We called ourselves cousins because our parents were distant cousins.
Growing up as a sensitive child, I paid attention to the littlest details of things.
I studied your petit body ( a body size too small for a 15 year old), I stared at your teeth whenever you spoke and your fingers while you gestured. You had told me you got an overriding teeth because of your bad habit... eating with knife, a superstition our mothers made us believe. You told me your fingers got damaged in an accident.
I wondered why you looked so different, yet I was fond of you, we were fond of each other.
There were moments I watched you wriggle in pains, and your mom would groan too, like she was feeling the same pain you felt. I watched her feel for you while she pacified you to endure these inevitable pains that came almost everyday.
You were helpless in that state of despair, your mother was, I was too. Well, I didn't know much of what was happening then. No one could help. That deadly pain just had to come and go whenever it wished.
Your mother only prayed it reduced sooner.
Your innocent life rolled by into years with this burden. Unfortunately, not for long.
A year after, you turned 16 and I was 11.
My mother stood at the entrance of her room and dropped the bombshell, "Jide is dead".
My bare face bore no expression. I felt a lump in my throat, I swallowed hard and couldn't cry. Trust me, I tried to. There was no wetness in my eyes. My mind trailed off to the recent moment we spent together.
You had spent the holiday with us last month. You had taught me how to ride a bicycle, which I did finally learned after falling off and crashing my right knee against the rough wall fenced round the compound. You told me falling off was the only way I could finally learn how to write a poem.
How funny it is now.
You were gone, Just like that. I couldn't grasp how or why you had died. "Why did Jide die?", this question rang in my head for days.
You weren't even up to 17, the world was cruel to you, an innocent child.
You were just a boy, but it didn't matter to death. It took you regardless of who you were.
You died.
Now I'm 18, you would have been 23 this year, Jide.
I'm still yet to mourn your death, you live on sweet cousin.
© Adejumobi Oluwatomiloba
