Steps Poem by BYENKYA HENRY

Am I a man or merely husk?
The mirror no longer answers quickly.

My steps have grown so heavy
the earth seems tired of carrying me.

Inside my chest,
something old and wounded
keeps coughing against the dark,
like an animal refusing the knife.

I wear silence like wet cloth.
Every hour sags from my shoulders.
Even the light entering the room
looks sickly and unwelcome.

Once, I believed suffering changed a man into iron.
But iron rusts.
Iron breaks.
Iron sinks quietly in deep water.

Now I move like abandoned machinery,
half-rattling toward morning,
half-praying for it not to come.