The Silence of Yesterday

for abunic sheriff – a friend who battled sickle cell. yesterday the bones in my friend’s body wrote me a note of grief saying that they were tired of living. even the smile my friend wore on the hospital bed grew withered & his voice became the new peace burning my eyes. with the oxygen to his nose helping him to revive. his skin produced sorrows as if his body was asking for too much from sickle cell. this is a tragedy that counts me too like the civil war our fathers fought. my friend tried with Allah on his lips for survival. he was a muslim. calm like prophet mohammed. how i wish this poem could be a call for resurrection from the dead to feel his palms again. only God knows how i feel in this poem. of how many days i watched my friend buried himself in pains on the hard ground. of how sometimes he bent on his knees to heal. in this poem, everything is mourning for my friend who grew halfway into life. yesterday he took his last breath & journeyed somewhere to find rest.