Kenopsia Coil, Tonye George (March 2026)

 

Kenopsia Coil

When my mother left, the world held me
in all the wrong places: behind stars, between
rusty doors, in hindsight, too tightly, too often,
too late. The chairs kept rocking as if habit
could replace a body, as if a child in mourning
needs a dice rolled to Ludo losses. My mother
was the lightning between me and cruelty,
the pulse between my dreams and the ghost inside
the wardrobe. Everything in our house tried to
remember her—the sidewalks, the chores, the bed
still shaped like her absence. I wore her loss in dresses,
in earrings. It followed me into showers, into offices,
into days that asked too much of me.
I built her photographs on the shelf of my head,
where grief keeps what it cannot touch. Roots
found by storms may never learn mercy, but a love
raised by the ocean will always reach for touch
along the shore. This island of voids—
and still, my father says: you have her eyes.
Dark. Sober. Always waiting to light something up.
Always dreaming.