Death is crunching rock till dust slips through fingers
Flowers between ribcages
Fog enfolding your hand in its palm
Death is exhaled air frozen at the edge of your lips
Shadows cloaking the whites of your eyes
Mud smeared on skull, dirt between teeth
Death is also stars in my blood vessels
Illuminating my irises till I implode
Light blinking through cracked lips
Death is nebula poisoning my lungs
Smoke from burnt out flames
Furling and unfurling
Clench the star in your palm
Leave nothing but heavenly dust
Cosmic dirt underneath fingernails
As for grief, a harsh net cloaking your bones
Shards of ice underneath your eyelids
Trapped air resting on your quivering tongue
Too afraid to fall out of your lips
Comes out in shivering puffs
Grief sneering inside you
Like a baby it wails, gasps
Begging to be relieved, to breathe
And you itch to sneeze it out, cough it
Spew it, a retch
All over your feet, the concrete
And you watch as it shifts, morphs
Until you see it wholly
For what it truly is
Ruby-Ann Konugah
Ruby-Ann Konugah lives in Lagos, Nigeria. For her, writing is a form of therapy and an intimate expression of the heart and mind. She loves poetry because there are no boundaries and it doesn't conform to an orthodox way of writing. There is freedom within it. Her poem is on a sober discourse which many shy away from but one this young lady conveys so powerfully with her vivid expressions.