FOR THOSE BOYS WHO BECAME THEIR OWN FRAGMENTS


How do you see yourself in yourself? How do you watch over yourself? What importance do you place over yourself? What value do you drive from watching yourself? I think you are the god of yourself building up the bridges that would sustain you if tomorrow comes. We may not have mouth to talk about future and dreams and aspirations and love and affections, but the US we see is the US we become. I have seen boys scattered by life choices, I have seen boys played by life and it callous elegies. When the sons of my neighbours learnt to arrange broken letters to form a word was when this man started growing teeth to eat meat but now, those sons have written a whole sentence and he still struggle with life. 

Do you blame him for that? 
Do you blame him for not meeting up? 

I think you should not split fire by pointing accusation fingers on him. He tried his best and fate suffered him. 

Another neighbour of mine has a way of abusing life. He taught himself how to put his index finger into the eyes of life. How to wear rag to mock life back after his wife died. All this mannerism and fetishness are the base of liveliness in this abode fearfully built. 

If we are to write dirge of goodness through this rough and coil life, if these matters are numbered before the fall of men. You don't need to bother yourself mind of the outcome of things. The elixir drill of mind, the only problem hold upon life and its dreadful cynical. The criminology of orthodox of faith. The most common thing about us is love. Life is paradise and hell. Life has been cracked up in the dreams of our classical music. Mysteries forgot to get in the arms of a man whose eyes lost in the prison of thought. We may find ourselves in the midst of fighters as dancers of this world. We may find ourselves in the open market where animals are the local boys parading the same way their lives paraded. I was possessed last night. I birthed shadows and spirits in the darkest places of the night and this shadows and spirits, came back to me to murder that part of me that fought for your sanity. 

Learn to love boys. 
Learn to be a man. 
Learn to hold yourself together in the room of marriage.
Learn to speak when necessary and be silent always.

Do not raise your hands upon a woman because that would make you weaker. My neighbour tried it and was stabbed by the stubbornness of the woman. I have known girls and how much they can do to kill you or make you. 

Learn more on your anger. Anger kills faster than laughter. We are to make smoke remain in the kitchen of our mother, then we would learn how to cook dinner and breakfast. If we must allow our sanity to remain part of us, then, we must learn to love. 

Love what we can not create. 
Love what we can not stop.
Love when laughter becomes a mirage.
Love when smile becomes envy. We must love by all cost for love is the solution to all this brutality in the society. 

Go to school and learn how to knit your thoughts together for a better opportunity. We may have seen civilization as a poet breaking new ground but it was the best thing that could have happened to our black skin. My mother became red when she sent her son to school and he went there to learn how to carry gun and kill. My father blamed her for sending him to school because he never understood what school is and will do to a man's life and future because he never went to school. 

Our chapters in life may not be many. They counted our pages even before we became blood in our mother's womb. So, utilize every opportunity that showcase itself to you. Sing when you are suppose to sing and never leave any stone untouched as long as turning them would help to get the society going. 

This is my plea that you boys learning to place yourselves in order and make the society a better place for all. How you see yourself is who you are. So see everything good in everything. See everything perfect in everything. I will continue to make this note a possibility to reach you all. I will keep writing this letter on your behave because you are one of those things that motivated in those days I lost myself in myself. 

Endeavour to return my good wishes when you glance through this admonish in good faith. 

- John Chizoba Vincent

About Writer:
John Chizoba Vincent is poet, filmmaker, cinematographer, Music Video director and Author of For Boys Of Tomorrow, Hard Times, Good Mama and Letter from Home. He lives in Lagos. 

You can contact him via his social media handles below:
Facebook: John Chizoba Vincent 
Twitter: Chizoba_Vincent

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