It all happened in April

Photo Credit: Porterfields Finearts http://bit.ly/23yAXY5

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding         

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing   

Memory and desire, stirring 

Dull roots with spring rain.  – Waste Land T.S Eliot

Dawn, April 14, 2004, my cousin, Gbenga Rufai died watching his dream descend into darkness-infinitum as he was denied life by several rounds of gunshots from armed robbers. I never heard the sound, but every April, I imagine the sound that lodged you in a 6-feet home. Paaaaap…Paaaaap…..Paaaap.  It’s not a good departure tune.  It is not.

"I scavenge the details of an abrupt end

carve gutter on my brows

I hush pain in the noise of sorrow." – I am memory

April 14, 2014; as dusk hurries after dawn, 276 Nigerian girls lost their names to become Chibok girls, they descended into our national anxieties, and as we waited for a return, they became numbers, list of names mementoed across the media, and forever a horrific memorial of a town they once called home.

A mother is watching the road every day

Her eyes live by the door for a surprise…

In all this, between tears, a smile to swallow the loss—my parents are making an endless narrative with their marriage, they celebrate their 48 years wedding anniversary tomorrow – 15 April 2016.