a week ago, my friend died.

champ!

i hate that i have to write this in past tense. i keep circling that fact like a wound that won’t scab, like if i walk it enough times it might open into explanation. idek, i read it at odd hours, phone burning my palm, eyes swollen, waiting for the sentence that confesses it already knew. nothing does. everything does.

she wrote this last year.

favour, you left this behind like a room already armed and dim, and we walked in barefoot, clapping for the echo. you trusted language the way some people trust locks. i trusted you. i didn’t know words could rehearse a crime.

you wrote blood before blood happened. that line won’t stop rattling. it won’t stop vibrating in my brain, it keeps tapping my skull like a knock i can’t answer. i don’t know what to do with poems anymore. i don’t know where to put them so they don’t hurt someone.

you said before blood kissed floor. favour, it did, it spilled, it ran fast. it soaked. it learned the shape of the room. and it was not art. your blood kissed the floor because a man chose to end you with his hands, he thought you were finishable.

what do you mean stabbed? wth

stabbed!?

again.

and again.

and again.

i hate that my brain wants to finish the scene, my mind keeps betraying me, it’s insisting on details i never asked for. your voice breaking, tearing, shouting, screaming, your body refusing, fighting.. your nails scraping hope out of walls. the door holding, the air, just stupid,. time shrinking. no help. no mercy, nothing. just thrust after thrust, after thrust, until the room forgot everything else.

this is where this poetry thing fails me. this is where i want language to bleed too. you were the therapist o favor, it was you that was murdered. your blood was the one on the floor. it’s not metaphor. not exercise. not narrative tension. actual blood. your blood. warm once.

how did i miss it. how did i clap. how did we all miss it?  i treated your work like daring. like mastery. like someone who knew the exits. i called it courage. i called it brilliance. i didn’t know the darkness had a knife. 

what exactly happened? illness?

illness didn’t stab you.

a man did.

he  stabbed you.

they  stabbed you,

they stabbed your sister.

and then he killed himself.

what a coward. mad man, bastard.. i keep spitting it out and it comes back.

you were an angel. lol, you would have laughed at that. you know you’re not an angel, you call out all those bullshit. you were human and loud and readable. emotional, you felt things without dilution. sometimes angry. sometimes needy. always present. you asked for attention because you were alive. was that why the world wanted to punish you??

i dont even know. stephanie too? your sister, you loved stephanie out loud mehn, said her name until it stayed in rooms after you left. bought gifts like you were apologizing for distance. maybe love felt safest when it was total. maybe you refused to leave anyone alone anywhere. even at the edge. maybe love meant to be there all the way, even in death. and that’s why you left with her? i don’t know. and i don’t get to ask you anymore.

i still can’t grasp it. 

my body keeps rejecting the fact like bad food.

favourwas stabbed to death!

my chest tightens every time i write it. my fingers slow down like they want to disobey.

you were a fighter. you planned. you stacked. you spoke like someone expecting tomorrow. you were not done. you were not even close.

jupeb. prep. overnight readings. you remember how you barely slept, lol, you called it meditation and laughed. you read my work. you helped me with oluchi. you pushed me. you answered every call. any time. i thought it was normal. now it’s holy, screaming at me.

first moot. first overnight. jamb. jupeb.  matric.

two weeks ago we went to the moot court together, i watched your mouth shape courage. now your body is still, you cant move, see, speak, you can’t hear me calling your name??? you can’t protest. favour, your stepdad killed you, say something now, shout!! argh!!

ochenuggss, ah. it’s a lot.

“victor, you’re just so chill. are you from the uk” not anymore, not this time

i don’t know where to put myself.

this death doesn’t fit you.

it’s too dirty, too violent. too forced. too ugly. too red. you didn’t deserve death, not at this time, at all it should have been gentle. this is too red for your rose, too much thorns for your flowe, too much ugly. i should have been gentle, you would have joked your way through the gates, sprayed perfume, make heaven think it was in heaven, and not even smell like effort.

i hope you arrived dressed, did you? i hope the angels mistook you for one of them. i hope you didn’t have to explain yourself.

you were the patient. you were the therapist. you were sliced. you were turned into evidence of someone else’s evil.

i was at a party. and you were being murdered. that fact keeps punching my ribs from the inside. i don’t know how to forgive the timing of my life.

i’m sorry ambulances hesitate here. i’m sorry help is conditional. i’m sorry distance happened. i’m sorry silence grew. i’m sorry i don’t have answers worth anythin. i’m sorry i don’t know if death lets me visit you. i’m sorry i don’t know anything useful.

i told you about putting a loaded gun on the table and turning off the lights. i thought it was only a metaphor. i didn’t know the room was already dark. i didn’t know peace could be mistaken for surrender.

there is no normal after this. return feels obscene.

if i could turn time back, it wouldn’t be only for you. it would be for everyone like you who deserved to finish. who deserved justice. who deserved to wake up. that’s what you would’ve wanted.

my friend, i’m sorry,  i love you. i loved you. i hate i have to write this in past tense..

and this doesn’t rhyme the way you would want.

i’m crying. i’m angry. i’m empty.

this is all i have left to give.

my friend.

my friend in distress.

ochennugs. favor.

rest.

i rage at the evil that wrapped its hands around you. i hate that death gave it quiet. i am not judge enough for clean endings, so i hold onto the hope of a place where death loses its voice and evil can’t speak. where i see you again whole, bright, unfinished, shining in paradise and peace.

until then, my friend.

until then,

rest well champ!🫶🏽

my caption