How To Become A Stranger In Your Home
Free Verse Poem by Smith Q. Jallah
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I firstly, curse the day you saw your parents throwing punches as if they are boxing so you’d carry the pain & trauma of the family on your shoulder like loads during the 90’s war. II find a bad hobby collect all the liquor & weed you’d find in shops & ghettos drunk your drunkenness, & burn forest let your parents know that you’ve found something that hide you from the world. III collect all the expensive & valuable items and do barter trade a Hennessy/sativa for jewelries/ fine art works IV come back like the prodigal son but, bring all the elders to appeal on your behalf make a promise that you’ve changed from all the hobbies that hide you from the world. V empty the house again & collect all your items disappear for weeks let the street accept all of you & don’t make your house sees you, disappear, disappear & disappear untill your existence would be like caterpillar before becoming a butterfly.
Smith Q. Jallah is an emerging poet who writes from Monrovia, Liberia. He’s a student at the African Methodist Episcopal University. Poetry Ambassador of Write Liberia sixth edition, and the Liberia Academic Excellence Award - 2022 High School Poet of the Year. His works have been featured in Kalahari Review and elsewhere.