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Invitation To Madness By Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo

A poem by Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo.

You have so many layers peeling off

Nothing will be left when you exit the labyrinths

So welcome to the place

Where emotions accumulate like runaway floodwater

It builds and builds and builds

Until it takes you with it

Smashing through fortified brackets

To a place elephants sleep

Making statements without periods.

It is a brand new suspense tunnel

Made scarier by its need to be discreet

Like a lazy cloud

It hovers over your head by day,

Like a drunk ghost

It lurks in the dark by quicksand.

To escape the nightmare

A version of you steps out of your head

Takes a bird's eye view at you and gets scared

It rushes back inside

And covers you with blanket of doubts

On which the psychedelic catechism is written:

What is very important

Must also be very dangerous.

Like a tattoo on the tongue

The lore of the anonymous

Mocks your shy candle

But when status quo ferments

Myths go naked

Incarcerating yesterday deities

For incurring deficit in dreams

Superstition doesn't blink

Else it sets ablaze

The gown of the fallen hope.

Even when it hurts

There is a feral purpose why it exists.

Stop being shadow’s puppet

Take a ride on petals of fire

For that’s what it means to be human.

You don’t need an answer

If it is your truth.

If you don’t learn something about the world

You’ll learn something about yourself

And how where you want to go,

Following the path of thunder’s snake

Is a house of dreams

That is built on memories

With feathers lined up the streets

It invites us to madness.


Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo is the author of "This American Life Sef."

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POETRY