UNKIND PROPHECIES by Kanyinsola Olorunnisola

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Let me tell you something:
a few years from now,
you will wake up to find
the sun’s claws digging deep
beneath the volatile beauty of your skin,
water will flood your room
and fill it up so only your eyes could breathe.

The rain will sing dirges
with sorrowful muffled tones
and your ears will bleed
till an ocean of blood paints your home
the red palace of doom.

Grains of food will learn to walk
out of your house and surely,
today’s fat rats will become ancestors
to starved crawling skeletons.

Your step-mother’s fingers will be worn
from washing your dirty clothes
and she will say,
“it is time to learn to do things yourself.”

Your father’s farm will become
a murderer – death to all the crops!
Death to everything that dares spring up!
Death to them!

You will carry your kwashiokor belly
around the city begging for alms
while wearing your grandfather’s finest regalia.

Why?
Because you did not listen
when the black bird warned you,
“Choose the light, choose life,” it sang
Because you hissed when the media analyst warned you,
“Choose the light, choose life,” he preached,
Because you scoffed and spat when I warned you,
“Choose the light, choose life,” I begged.