Locusts

LOCUSTS

He was bright
A child quickly becoming a man
But the One Who Knows
Told me to raise my hand
As the locusts arrived

I followed

Don’t go, they told me
You don’t have to be a part
It will come
But do not seek it
Do not follow the path it leads

I followed

“He calls you his father”
It could have been so easy
“Do not bear a hand in his death”
So much easier
But instead I struck the fatal blow

I followed

Now I am empty
A hollow shell of man
Consumed by emotion
Womanly
Drunken and regretful for all I have done

I followed

It gets easier when you focus on the mundane
And forget the past
Bride prices and titles
And not what matters
Not the echoes of Ikemefuna

I followed

Why did I follow?
Why did I allow this pain to haunt me?
And why can’t I return
To the locusts’ arrival
When the world still fit the order I had made?

Free from emotion but not from him