A DYING MAN

I was born a saint,
my heart was clean and my sins faint,
though like day I was naked to immorality,
my mind was laced with teachings of purity,
as I grew like a tree into a sky of sin.

Innocently, like the sun, I rose through puberty,
my body steaming with emotions of bliss.
Fantasies, like pictures, began to play in my mind
my heart leaping to joy at the slightest kiss,
my eyes warm to the sight of beauty...
even as my groin dance to the tune of sexuality,
and like the clock, my life ticked away
as fornications sets and purity gave way.

Like the deafening sound of a church bell,
the Preacher made noise about chastity,
and like the consuming flame of hell,
I was burning with lust for sensuality.
Women became fuel to my arousal,
serving as a yardstick for my appraisal.
I was as far away from morality as Pluto from Mars,
and as close to sin as pant to a stripers' ass.

Like a monkey hopping from tree to tree,
I moved from one lady to the other,
making love till it became a regular spree
my heart and sin synching perfectly with one another.
To be chaste was not in my life's dictionary,
for the word sounds to me like obituary...
a threat to my sinful adventures.

Aye! I was drenched in sins,
my ears, like that of a goat, were stubborn to warnings,
all cautions I threw to the wind,
until my failings like boils surfaced on my skin...
diseases hugged me like moss on a rock,
my health failing with every tick of the clock...
becoming as lean as the figure one,
with my bones and flesh competing for space,
as my stomach's contents run out of my anus in an endless race.
The Doctor said I have AIDS.

Now here I lay bedridden,
feeble like a broken leg,
all my women, from me are lost and hidden.
Through my window comes a familiar noise:
the Preacher preaching chastity with his deafening voice,
my tears falling as my wasted life I mourn:
I should have practiced chastity,
for then I wouldn't be lying here waiting for death to carry me on.

Author: Bright Herman Agbewu

---

---