<center>*The fly wanted to join me 
As the heat sucked moisture from my tongue. The water was warm, metallic, 
Stained with chlorine and soil. 
The fly buzzed to my shoulder 
But I threw the torn wrapper at it 
Then I returned back to 
*Wainaina's How to Write about Africa* 
Circa 2005. 
It made me smile, his satire. 
I threw the wrapper just before 
The fly could find its wings 
But still, like a chopper dodging missiles, 
It evaded my attack.*</center>

My tongue still has the taste of yesterday's dinner now sour, now tart with the memory of sleep. My toothbrush is a brush of twisted bristles and I'm not keen to wound my gum. One hundred naira for a toothbrush; smoker's hard, but I still wait for tomorrow that never comes. 
***
<center>![bird1045954_1280.jpg](https://files.steempeak.com/file/steempeak/warpedpoetic/YxcMMscH-bird-1045954_1280.jpg)</center><center><sub>*[pixabay: homecare119](https://pixabay.com/photos/bird-wings-fluttering-nature-1045954/)*</sub></center>
***
Somebody on facebook said poverty porn is not bad for every writer has the right to write their story in any way they can. I do not know. I write some trauma porn and some other sorts of porn if that's the case but who's masturbating to my words? Well what do you know of my poverty and my porn now? 

On my cracked phone screen,  I permeate a world. I drink from the fount of inspiration, and build my sense of destiny, of truth,  of undeniable beauty **(it was unrelieved beauty in the drafts but...)** in the essence of the well written word. I'm so appalled as to how lonely I am. 

I'm waiting for Mari.  She should come today. She might spend the night. We might have sex and I might sate my thirst for inserting myself into holes that I shouldn't be in. That's how one gets bit. 

Binyavanga is right. It is funny how people write about Africa like she is a girl abandoned, begging in the streets, prostituting herself, stealing, bitter at the world, willing to lie and kill. I have never really thought about it that way. You know something weird, I never knew of him, Wainaina Binyavanga, until he died. That shows how little literature I consume. This should be remedied. 

<center>*I ran away 
From the room to the parlour.
Sorry, it's a tailor's workshop now. 
The fly follows me like a fan, 
An acolyte, a sycophant, a worshipper. 
Its prayers though, they disturb and taunt. 
I swing the torn wrapper again
and it's unwashed smell hits me; 
A solid thing.
I need to wash my tongue, 
it reminds me, 
with the broken bristles of my toothbrush, 
it reminds me.*</center>

I once had an encounter through my parlour window with the brrr of a bird taking to flight. I heard it twit as it lifted off my roof where it had built its nest and nurtured its young. It reminded me of one chick that fell one rainy afternoon. I met it outside as I stepped out to smoke my umpteenth cigarette of the day. 

It was small and warm, its heart beating like the veins on my wrists when I feel my pulse in a prelude to wondering what it would feel like to die **(yes I do get some weird thoughts in this head of mine)**. It was cold for it shivered in my palm. I got garri and water and tried to feed it as if hunger and thirst were the only problems in the world. I now suspect that it has not developed its wings and missed the coziness of its nest. It also had a swollen throat, I later noticed. Maybe its parents threw it out of the house for being unfit, weak, crippled, broken; who knows? 

I caressed it for sometime, hoping that an idea would pop and I would know what to do. I built a nest from grasses I pulled from the ground and placed it under my roof and hoped a good Samaritan bird would come and save it. No one came, I watched. I waited until darkness began to descend and it became pointless. I watched it sleep fitfully as if in pain but I had no idea of what to do so I went inside and told myself that it would be fine. Maybe, in retrospect, there was something I could have done. Maybe take it in, build a cage, 

In the morning, it was dead. I buried it and said a prayer for it then I placed a spark plug as a cairn to mark its grave. It was the most I could do with all my much vaunted knowledge. Some few hours after the funeral rites, power came on and the water pump began to pump water into the tank. When it became full, the water flowed out in torrents and by the time I got there to put off the pump, the spark plug marking the grave was gone. The little bird was gone. I wept. I will never forget the child. I really wished I could have saved it. 

<center>*The fly is silent now 
And I'm going to sleep soon. 
A long, long sleep but Granta
Has some really interesting articles 
Of the literary slant. 
It will build my writing, 
I think, I hope.*</center>

I go to the room,  with my phone and I meet a mosquito ready to take the music up from where the fly stopped. I muttered my irritation but I digress. Mari came and she had a Bible and a shawl. She kept singing one gospel song or the other and pursing her lips in ways that made me think of kisses amongst other things. We laughed and insulted each other politely while she slowly placed me in a friendzone. 

A friend said some guys would do everything possible to get into her undies but I'm not some guys and I don't make move on girls who cannot remember my name. I want a lover not a one night stand, a friend not a bed mate, a companion not a sex doll. Any who she came and left and that is what it is. Good night. 
***
©warpedpoetic, 2019.