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31.12.2023 Featured The Poet: When Will the Slaughtering Stop?

Published 31st Dec, 2023

By Abimbola Abatta

Dark dark clouds and dark dark shadows thrive here,
In this land,
And Mother Earth drinks the blood of the innocent slaughtered like rams on Christmas Eve.
How can a mother slumber when her children writhe in pain and die in reckless abandon?

The poet is tired,
Tired of drowning in the sea of grief after the demise of families,
Tired of writing about one, two, hundreds and thousands of lives lost to the monsters,
Tired of imagining the lives and dreams of the lifeless faces lying in their own pool of blood,
Tired of wishful thinking ’cause she knows no saviour is coming.

READ ALSO: The Poet: Christmas Came Early, but With Tragedy

I call you my friend today; I slaughter you tomorrow.
That’s how it should be. Right?
That’s how it is in this land where brothers kill one another for sport and friends go on a killing spree for trophy.
Friends? What friend takes life from another?

The poet is tired,
Tired of painting words about corpses buried under the rubbles,
Tired of seeing hands, limbs and eyes torn apart like a chicken cut into parts,
Tired of the faux outrage, the rollercoaster down the stages of grief until acceptance sets in,
Tired of moving on after screaming out loud at the terror that lives in humans.

Humans. This word is curious.
Should killers bear the same label as humans?
Maybe yes. Maybe no.
I really don’t know.
Is it humane to kill, maim and destroy faces that breathe in the same air as you do?

READ ALSO: The Poet: Things I Can Never Unsee

The poet is tired,
Tired of trying to imagine what runs through the mind of the average terrorist,
Tired of trying to reason with a killer,
Tired of painting gory images of death in diverse hues,
Tired of the rulers whose hypocrisy stinks than the putrid smell of the souls of the killers.

Maybe, maybe for the last time the poet will ask:
When will the slaughtering stop?
When will love return to the core of humanity?
When will the monsters realise their errors and stop the senseless massacre?

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Published 31st Dec, 2023

By Abimbola Abatta

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