Abode: The Guilt Caravan

By Charles Njikonye

the owls are singing bullets upon us.
—Adedayo Agarau

I swear, upon me. upon the skins of my future. upon 
my shadow, penumbra & umbra. this is the hymn of a
          semi-depressed, & his guilt ignites it. tell me, when 
          uncertainty becomes the tibia & fibula of the skeleton,

how then can I take a step without the thought that I 
may crumble like the walls of Jericho? take. this elegy 
          is from the ripest fraction of my heart, & a fallen tree 
          branch sits & I tape self on it. I sit on a fallen tree trunk

& its city is Lafia, Nigeria. I sit, a loner. I sit, the earth 
mocking my fragility. I sit, my body a farmland of grief, 
          harvesting into a country of thick regrets. I sit, graceless 
          dust/ boy of hefty nebulosities/ house of great entropy.

I sit, & my joy is fleeing—waving me goodbye, becoming 
past tense, germinating into a thing of memory. I sit in 
          the epicentre of my body-soul spat/ passivity so grand, 
          my existence as haphazard as a whirlwind. I sit, suitless

of elegance. these are the ballast monotonous lines of a 
wounded who reckons his bruises aren't well heard unless 
          if tailored to be repetitious, be synonymous— rhythmic, 
          one bruise resounding another. as if to say, extricate me,

rebirth me, help unend me. as if to say, slacken me from 
the talons of grief, unbend me from grief, drown me in 
          the belly of a miracle to rid me of my grief. nighttime 
          befalls & psychosis belash me. & what could be an immediate

antipsychotic medication, if not a plain-hearted prayer? 
the stars above my noggin cluster into verses of prayers & 
          my lips begin to sing this supplication, & shoot it to the 
          chest of heaven, wrapped in amen. but where's an atom

of faith in this praying tongue? for isn't faithworthiness 
the heartbeat of a rendered prayer? & there are the lungs 
          of my stubborn miseries, where mother insists our 
          family's bad luck emanates—the plague of a prayer

warrior bone-dry of faith. just like my teacher says, 
a student without a pen in class is a carpenter without 
          a hammer. how metaphorically inclined with my ailment 
of a faithless prayer, yet my condition is atypical,

broadening its leaves into a sea of rituals—my chest 
opening its door to guilt & more guilt, & I become 
          eroded inside out. I returned home to mother folding 
          fufu into transparent nylons. Nne’m ortutu oma, I

greeted & she failed to answer—highly conscious of 
her third child's presence, she silenced & disacknowledged 
          it. as if to say without words, go away to someplace
          faraway & never return. as if to say without speaking,

I'm purging myself of you, product of faithlessness. 
behold, this plummet I fell is deepening. I see it 
          circling mother's eyes, that eagerness to shove fufu-sized guilt down my throat


Writer’s Biography
Njikonye Charles Nnamdi (he/him) is a writer & poet from Umuahia, Nigeria. His works have appeared in Last Girls Club, Sprinng, Salamander Ink Mag, & elsewhere. His poetry chapbook, This Cup Runneth Over Or Not, was a finalist in the Nigerian NewsDirect Chapbook Awards (2022).