perhaps that is why the good die young

By MK Kuol

the untimely death of my cousin
has taught me to reflect
on things solemn
even on light moments.

when, the other time,
after many, many years away
we returned to our ancestral home
& my overtly over-the-moon father,
in the rigid rites of his fathers,
slaughtered the fattest of his bulls
& gathered our kinsmen to a feast
to celebrate our homecoming,
i couldn’t put my mind
off that star-crossed bull―
meanly slain, because of its fatness,
for others’ indulgence’s sake
& the grief-scarred bereaved
who mightn’t, like me, ever recover
from the irredeemable loss his death is―
the whole while.

perhaps that is how my cousin died:
god, straining to entertain his guests,
saw him fit for a slaughter.
perhaps in the eyes of god,
moral-uprightness is fatness…
perhaps that is why the good die young

MK Kuol loves dark rooms, coffee, moon-gazing, folk music (Arizona JJ’s to be exact) and conspiracies. He tweets (rarely) @mk_kuol14.