The Day I Left For the City

THE DAY I LEFT FOR THE CITY

The day I left for the city

Mother kissed me goodbye

And whispered into my ear

"Go make a change"

In my father's hut I knelt 

As he gave me his final blessings

The day I left for the city

I sat on the last roll of an overloaded lorry

Enduring the rude unwanted touch

Of strangers I can neither trust nor pity

Like me they have left home behind too

Vowing never to return

Until the goddess of benevolence cross their paths

Each day in the vast and complex city

I lumbered through rigid labyrinths  of survival

Shielding fragments of my being

As my sweat frictions with the wind

Each night, I lay quietly on my iron bed

My heart burdened with many anxieties

The burning bulb mocking over my crowded head

The memories of my childhood in the village

Come flooding at my door

The melodies of the nights

The sounds of gay children on the street

The ecstasy of pounding mortals

The twinkling stars and winking winds

I wonder how I cannot see

The beauties of this world anymore

The young fowl fending in the meadow of vultures

Should not nurse a grudge with its mother

The flourishing river

Should not keep malice with its source

A man must not forget his own origin

I refuse to be lost

I will return to my root someday

Not as a boy unknown to his clansmen

But as a man who has conquered the world

© Olatuja Oloyede