SEMICOLON;

Too often, our cries for help are silent ones.
Unheard. Unheeded.

-Emily

Believe it or not—
depression is a veil closing our eyes.

If you’ve walked through the long night of grief,
you’ll see the ghost that lives in your head. You’ll

see shadows hiding in your walls, and hear taunting whispers:
“take another capsule and lay, rest.”

on this road, a boy lit his body,
and called it a sanctuary.

My therapist walked through this road. She dressed
her wounds till it grew wild and ate her up. Her therapy couldn’t

save her anymore. Even the therapist needs a therapist. Now,
I’m on the road between dying, and

not wanting to live again. Granny said the shadows I see are dying
flowers. I admire the dying ones, whenever she tends her roses.

Take it:
a withered flower will not wither again.

Yesterday, a poet walked into the night with pain and pills.
He never came out. I wished I’d joined him to see if he found peace.

Inside my head is a sad place. Call it a movie: snapshots and
then a fade to Black. Peering at Freud’s

sadistic psychoanalytic theories, my superego
drives my ego to end it. To be a golden, athletic god.

My language instructor once passed this path. He said:
“life is like a semicolon; we can end it. We chose not too…”

Listen: I decide never to do it again.
Ever.

Ókólí Stephen Nonso is a Nigerian writer whose poems have previously appeared in  Feral Journal, Ngiga Review, Praxis Magazine,  African writer, Adelaide Literary Magazine New York, Tuck magazine, and  elsewhere. His short story has appeared in Best of African literary magazine. He has contributed in both national and international pages and anthologies. A joint winner of the May 2020 Poets in Nigeria (PIN) 10 day poetry challenge, and also a first runner-up in the fresh voice foundation Poetry contest. He is currently working on his Poetry manuscript. You can say hello to him onTwitter @OkoliStephen7