The Centre Will not Hold

The centre will not hold

For it is clay

Made of dust and some spittle

And so it will succumb

To the pressures that life suppresses it with

It will cower and feel threatened

And slowly it will give in

Bowing to mediocrity, averageness and whatever life offers

For it couldn’t hold.

For it is mortal, made of clay that disintegrates with time

The centre will not hold

Debts will come in

From all the corners of the earth

And they will lure you

With sweet smiles and fragrant scents

And you will bow; to them

Giving in to a life full of financial crises

Later you will feel threatened,

Every friend becomes a foe

They want a pound of flesh from your jugular

And so you become socially aloof

Hiding and avoiding everyone

For your centre refused to hold

The centre will not hold

In class, you seem to be the dumbest kid

You know nothing

And the nothing you know, you do not know it well

And so the teachers wonder what this cabbage is doing in class

It needs a knife, they will say

And so they will slice you

With taunts and torment

You will of course fall apart

The centre will not hold

Your boss will squawk at you

Pressure on top of pressure till you feel like urinating

Worse still if you have no job

The landlord and you will be paraffin and water

You, the paraffin because your pocket is lighter

At this, the centre will crumble.

The centre will not hold

All your relationships turn to naught

The opposite sex sees you and they turn away

They wouldn’t stand to be associated with you

And so you feel that your great grandfather displeased the gods

Maybe he didn’t break the nine gourds at Uhuru Park  as was required

Maybe he broke only eight and kept one for his killer brew.

Maybe he drank all muratina  during sherehes and forgot to pour libation to the gods

And so, there you are; dejected, lonely and feeling that life is unfair

Meaningless; like a dead decaying log discarded into the middle of an ocean

And so you turn to the brown bottle, because it offers plastic consolation.

Or better still you test the rope. To see how taut it can be. 

From the rooftop you hang; Okonkwo style.

For your centre was just a centre.

A mortal centre.

It wouldn’t hold.

But brother, why didn’t you?

Introspect and wonder the fabrication

Of this centre that you pride in

Why didn’t you- look and see its vanity

Why didn’t you, acknowledge the one who moulded this centre

For his centre is immortal