By: Yahuza Usman

My Feverish Pen

was wallowing in its misery,
small enough to subdue its melancholy,
bright enough to throw into relief
the dark plastic that cluttered it.

i learned that much rage was crawling
together with its flooded ink
trying to fetch a fresh ink and wet its tip
that yearns to bleed words of relief.

my pen was trembling and about to vomit blue ink;
my pen’s ink would turn to ice.
catching a deep glimpse of the scorching sun,
and my pen’s throat would swallow all the yearnings;
despair and outrage are feelings that accompany
the breath-stopping agony of rejection.

if i could be certain that my pain would not die
& the misery would not last till eternity,
Soon, I’d be cuddling my pen with affection.
& give birth to new, soul-calming lines.

###

My Feverish Pen II

was wallowing deeply in its old miseries:
small enough to contain its ink
& bright enough to let in a deep relief
the dark plastic that became its skin.

once in the night of silence, it slept in a peaceful woes
& awoke in a terrible woe that swallowed its visibility;
woes of pain, of the exit of its beloved school—my book.

& the sickness of my pen seemed
not a fist-shaking grief to me but
rather a simple yet a must obligation
to unthink something, forget something,
unwrite something, feel something about
the lost of my long-term creative book.

my pen was trembling not to let, at all,
this heart-smashing event passed unrecorded,
unidentified; it was unbearable, unnatural to let
the loss goes with a mere grief, a slight murmur;
of untold grievous story, of dreadful incidence.

& just like that, my pen breaks itself
into a pessimistic dirge in every second
It recalls the lines it created in its school—
my beautiful, creative book.

###

Yahuza Usman, a certified Wikimedian, is a Nigerian poet, short-story writer, book reviewer, voracious reader, essayist and a member of the Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation from Al-Mishkat Academy Jalingo, Taraba State. He has been a coauthor in about 7 International anthologies. He has his works published by Al-Mir’aatuh Magazine, World Voices Magazine, Itell Stories and Everything Beautiful and elsewhere. He’s the prose 2nd runner-up of WVM Online Contest, May edition. He was shortlisted among the 2022 Iconic Writers of India by Sparkling Cornexpress Media, India. He emerged the 2nd position of Taraba Youth for Peace Project Essay Competition organized by Dar Al Andalus Centre in October, 2022. He won the first prize for on-the-spot non-fiction writing at the 2023 Hadiza Ibrahim Aliyu School Festival (HIASFEST 2023) in Minna, Niger State. Yahuza is a Hafiz, a typist, a graphic designer, and a networker who bears “Crawling Writer” as his poetic name.