The Seed of Eternity |
Issue 17
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With bullets in my mouth,
I speak with my lips shut; whatever must die for the bullets to leave the cavity of my body, must die now; nothing is holding them together, nothing unites them, except for the terror and the destruction about to languish on a helpless body. The soldiers came for one man before they met us at home, and came for everyone who stood by my father. Yet, he had no bullets in his body, neither had my mother and siblings. They picked me apart and inserted five or seven bullets, as the sniper stood over us. They were right and their judgment was to the point; the bullets would not kill me if they detonated them. But they would kill my father if they shoot me. How often I thought about this, how my father would be swallowing Panadol for the headache ravaging my brain. Though my eyes rolled over my head and I felt a tunnel in my eyes, I didn't open my arms to embrace hope when my father would fall in their hands. It was a hopeless situation, one mired in a river of loss, which my parents’ love could only exacerbate. All my years and dreams, all the memories I had as a youth, my nightmares mixed with my fantasies, for which I could not discern the semblance of a tomorrow, sprawled before me like snails hanging on the tips of a palm tree. I was not scared of losing my life since that would put an end to these gory nights, but I was terrified of losing my parents, which would be the end of me. I could read the red dotted lines crawling in my father’s mind and I knew that he, too, was not happy to lose me. The soldiers must be killing themselves, figuring out whether it was better to kill me or my father. They must have convinced themselves that one of us must die; if their perplexity became collateral, they would kill both. Yet, in the dire grips of an incurable illness they knew it was not possible to shoot both of us if one carries the seed of eternity. Perhaps they intended to exterminate a family or a lineage or a bloodline; this fragmented truth would not be in their favor. I saw their spirit mob conscience, dry from their pursuit of blood, tethered to a blossom which would not survive a humdrum existence. |
Jonathan Chibuike Ukah’s debut Chapbook, A is for Anfang, was published by The Island of Wak-Wak (December 2025). His awards include Poem of the Month at The Literary Shark Poetry Contest 2025, Winner of The Atlantis Poetry Award 2026, Alexander Pope Poetry Award at The Pierian, 2025, Vivian Shipley Poetry Award, at the Connecticut Poetry Contest 2025, Third Place Winner at the Hemlock Journal Poetry Contest 2025. His poems have appeared in Atticus Review, The Pierian, Propel Magazine, Journal of Undiscovered Poets, TAB; The Journal of Poetry and Poetics.
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