WHEN I AM GONE BY OFEM UBI

Dear family

My life like every other is a journey

A perfect example of a withering flower

And every passing day leads me close to my inevitable certainty

When I depopulate earth

Flowers will litter the feet of my stone than when I existed

Tears potent enough to flood my desert lungs and quench my dead thirsty soul

So when I am gone

Sugarcoat not my obituary with candies of lies

When my name is wiped off earth’s slate

Sprinkle not salt of false words on my corpse

Do not spray fairy tales of my perfection

Don’t photo shop or frame images of my obsequies to portray a portrait of an undaunted legend

Cos the world has witnessed endless exits of icons gone too soon and there have been several glorious home calls

But instead tell the world the truth

And cover me with dust of solemn goodbye hymns

Tell them I wore lies on my face like makeup

And my feet wore shoes that often paddled me to the shores of iniquity

Tell them I was a Christian

But that didn’t make me better than the unbeliever

Mistakes were my best friend and I was its favorite customer

Tell them I was a Negro

Proud, bold and beautiful enough with the black color branded on the layers of my skin

Tell them I was a stutterer

But the fluency of my voice was in pen and paper

And so I was the silent literal speaker

And the best of them is reading this piece now

Tell them I had knife for eyes and spears for words

My tongue was a living casket that buried souls in a feast of verbal funerals

Tell them I had sin hung up on me like necklace

And it was too beautiful an adornment to be removed

Tell them I stood for justice like a righteous waving flag

An endless song playing on the iPod of God’s imaginations

Tell them I loved poetry

But my works were just a scratch on the deepened depths of literature

Tell them I lived long enough, but not enough to fulfill my purposes because they were a list long

Tell them I was human