Teller of Tales, Writer of None by Papa Miezah Polley

The days turned to nights, then to weeks
The weeks gave their nods to the months
The boy said I am, so I am
But the words that won’t come said: Are you?
Are you the teller of the stories?
The god that crafts tales of the mind,
Then write, oh dear son, tap the letters
That would paint the voices in your head.

The clock ticked and months tocked to years
And years brought the doubts and the tears
The boy inched closer to his death:
Perhaps I wasn’t one after all
These images I see in my head
These voices that direct the stories
Why won’t these fingers do the tapping
And put words on these blank pages?

Papa Miezah Polley is a Ghanaian writer and teacher (of French as a Foreign Language). A language enthusiast, he enjoys literature he captions as ‘having the power to tear the imagination apart’. He writes with the goal of one day being mentioned amongst writers who do this.