Ndagukumbuye (I miss you)

writers eat me alive

they use me up like a wasted, slaughtered chicken
They use me up until a pretty picture is presented

Writers use me up like an artist’s toil
They wrap colors around a sea of blood

And Nina screams with fearful pain, “Mississippi Goddamn,” while Americans cry over their leftovers being not so sweet

agony in my blood, boiling over like the Red Sea, angry blood

Anger over your beautifully rendered art

As a babe falls over, a shot of darkness is captured on film,

You can feel the freeze of throbbing hell in the frame

The man as bad as the vulture that shot the dangerous dance of death

Does the picture bleed, as it cannot hear the cry

Cannot love

Cannot dream

Cannot be ripped away from a mother’s arms

I miss you, (but what did I miss?)

The pain you spilled over to

The agony you threw up as bad leftovers

The sadness of trauma that seethed like a crackling pan on the flame

The writer’s, they ate us all up inside

And said, “I miss you,”

With a snake tongue.