Love Poem: Mistaken Sacrifice
Akunna Olomi Avatar
Written by: Akunna Olomi

Mistaken Sacrifice

The procession crawls off hesitantly
On willing shoulders, the casket floats
Wooden and heavy on hefty shoulders
In his train, in dirgy whispers
The countless mourners trudge along
Behind my love's eternal hide-away
Just then I saw her amidst the straddlers
Unaffected and with no wreath for his tomb
Suddenly, the re-occuring echoes again
The echoes of the sobbering past
Wading through the water, I could see him again
Swimming against the tide towards her
The perishing, wherever she came from
Gasping for breath and wallowing for help
She is not to be blamed, I am
I shouldn't ve left his side while he snored
Lost in visionless rest and quietude
He wouldn't have gone impulsively for her
Mistaking her for me, his heart beat
My heart pounded guiltily and mercilessly
As he went and never came back
She came and his remains came too
The redeemer and the redeemed, they made news
He became the drowned and she, the heroine
How unfair life is between longing hearts
How unfair she acts between us - the wombs
Yes, there she is again amidst the straddlers
Chattering noisily, unlike the funereal atmophere
Beaming remorselessly against the encompassing mood
Although the celebrated waste, he is my hero
The redeemer, and not the redeemed is the icon
He may have saved another, for me, he died
I must tell the ingrate, I am most grateful
Because for my life, he wasted his life
He saved her but for me, he gave his life