HOME, A POEM BY EDWIN OLU BESTMAN

how do you call a place that makes you to hate yourself?

should it be called home?

let us assume in this poem you are like a freely falling body. 

you fall many times on the hard ground to the extent that similes & metaphors cannot repair those wound tissues in your body.

this means/ you are learning how to hold grief like a widow whose lover took a voyage with death on her pre-wedding night.

this is the meaning of home – in liberia,

our mother’s children continue to dig up themselves until there are no leftovers.

many people have prayed/ some fell in love with the holy spirit/ others engaged the church with Christ on their lips.

but this home of ours/ it has refused to hearken to our cries/ 

& the testimonies of girls & boys who travel distances in search of freedom.