My arriving home was
a curse for my beloved.
I know she could feel the
stench of my loneliness
race down her nostrils
even when she stood
before me.
An irregular arrhythmia was
the last
oasis of my thirst for suicide.
I liked roasting my grief.
One time, I mistook
spice for water, then invited
it into my lungs so I could
die from hypoxia.
Silence is good music. And
did I love good music.
Now, I do not know whether I am
learning how to breathe, or tossing
a dry joke to the hollow face
in the mirror, I am holding.
Chabota Sibuku is a Zambian poet and fiction writer. He is the winner of the 2020 Scripted Silence Poetry Prize.