I was a boy walking and waiting
straight for the dreadful kiss of guillotine
my heart, screaming once I was injected
with the stale toxin of retribution,
months and months of being baptised in cow dung

Every hour, I had to sneak behind the
unsuspecting walls for the fear of being
caght in the red beartrap, the red circle,
the target for those demonic snipers of criticism,
hiding daily, I could feel the breath of murder on my neck,
menacingly reaching out toward me with a knife or gun,
choosing how eternal darkness would take its
true prophetic form

my spine was crippled by the throne
of those murder kings!
kings crowned with human blood from a butcher knife
those goons on the throne of victorious disgrace,
once warriors of disdain,
oral killers! verbal vandals! their words
were just enough venom to kill me…

I always hide in the shame
with which they had stung me,
hoping they would be dethroned by time…
                                                                    By Kakraba Afful