A Lie To My Wife
for the second time in a row
I arrived home late in the morning
I looked at the watch
- 2 a.m. in the morning!
I looked at my sleepy wife but didn’t
know what to say
so I told her a lie...
.. that I wasn’t with Rihanna
that I had been with Nelly
since 2 pm that day
that Nelly was a witch
that she wanted to bewitch me
that I wanted to rape her
that I was cursed
how else could I have been
conceived
if my mother had not been raped?
how did Nelly know
that my mother had been raped?
so I told another lie
that I knew that I was blessed
that one day I will be the president
the president of Kenya
that one day I will walk
free
free from the curse
that one day I will become a preacher
….. by the way did you know that I have a diploma?
a diploma in theology?
I looked at the door and told
my wife to listen for a knock ....
... but there wasn’t a knock except for
a jacket,
a black jacket with a label on the side
a label of the devil
so I told my wife to burn the jacket in the morning
a jacket that I had been given by the devil
the devil who said that I was cursed
so I told her I had to sleep, and when I wake up in the morning
I would tell her a lie,
that it was a dream
a dream, a poem
that I had written ten years ago
in a black book that was now old
a black book that was now gnawed by rats
so she looked for the book in the morning,
the old book that had been gnawed by rats
but
there was no poem
because it wasn’t a dream,
a lie!
Copyright © James Mwando | Year Posted 2019
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