DEATH AND THE CHILD

Would you come play with me?

Many find their hope, their purpose, their rhythm, and their fulfilment between the thighs of a woman, in the tendrils of smoke floating from the tail of the joint they hold in their mouth, in religion, in academia, in silence, and in the noisy streets of the market as they haggle with traders for the best price for their necessaries. A few find their rhythm in the melody of the chirping crickets, the crying cicadas, the braying donkeys, the neighing horses, the clucking chickens, and the quacking ducks. Others seek their rhythm in things no one bothers to speak about for the fear of being counted as one of them. But we all know it, do we not? We are aware of what they do, how they do it, when they do it and how it affects them. We watch them sink into that space, doing absolutely nothing to pull them out, letting them drown even deeper in a pit of their own digging.

Every man has a purpose to fulfil, no? And not doing it will lead you into a well of emptiness and sadness, despair and depression, your immediate and eternal companions. No rhythm for you there.

My rhythm exists in watching. And waiting, plotting and planning in secret.

I watch people walk on in the streets, mapping the places their feet fall, looking out for the one who stumbles into the cleanly laid trap. They would never know it was there; they would never know they had been marked, but I would know. Cos, I see it. I see them. I set the trap, painstakingly covering it up with layers upon layers of wet concrete. I know they would come back to it, drawn like a moth to a flame, suspecting something wrong but not knowing what exactly is wrong. They would walk around the hole, feet a bit away from the mouth of it, never actually stepping inside, never paying full attention to what lies in front of them.

I wait in the shadows for them, happy they always come back to the pit, cheerfully plotting the next trap to lay and what to put in it for them. I watch you as you step onto it, let my mark seep onto your skin, and then brush it off as if it had never been there. I wait, in the shadows, day after day after DAY, for you to come back. And check for it. Wonder what must have caused the irregularity in the muddy floor, what could have been down the slope you thought was there.

YOU DON’T SHOW UP. I wait. YOU LEAVE ME WAITING. For you. I never wait. Or, maybe it’s a game? You seek to push me out of the shadows I have grown accustomed to and pull me into yours?

So, I seek you out. I find you.

And I’m HERE. WATCHING YOU.

I SEE YOU. I SEE HER. I SEE THEM. I SEE ALL OF THEM.

I hear your breathing when I walk down your hallways at night, excited at the thoughts of things I could do and no one would suspect it was me.

I SEE YOU.

Won’t you come play with me?

Signed:

A🖤💜