A Funeral Today

Untitled Part 1

There was a funeral today.

Springing from the wayward weather of April's dismay, it was the dawn of May. Donning black a congregation attacked misery through half a day's companionship. The dearth of comfort which exhumed in heaves and rhythmic tuts, plucked the chemistry an awakening poem would bump. Tucking in quivering lips, slinky knees bobbling along to anxious weaves. In heed of a young mans untimely death, a typical story which stretched over a decade of a communities accumulated stress, this brimming cultures version of the Wild West. Except this was South, a constant bout orchestrated between gentrifications midst's – which conveniently extended a mist to expel hints of road violence. With trident circulating ends bellowing their sirens, an assembly of migrants offered their silence. As the casket was lowered into the Earths depths, cries of unfathomable whys – splattered the doomed minds of youth who had no choice but to reason the truth, that nobody really cared.

As Jumani stared at the pitch-black coffin which amassed clumps of dirt as if it masked the gathered capacity of hurt, his numb hand lurked to toss a third of his leaking heart. Trembling in encroaching church shoes leeching warmth from his feet and a tightly pressed shirt in which he hoped shielded his nerves. His best friend, Tobi, who embodied a happiness and passion met his demise in a similar fashion as countless caught lacking. Terminology of method, how lacking is considering slacking without realising the danger in place. Tobi's innocence was projected benevolence he championed before his loved ones. Emphatic and confident on being beyond one zone, one mode of thinking a majority of inner city black youth were sold. Images would fold in his mind, severing ties with positivity. Ceasing to be eager beyond a hard-boiled demeanour. Despite gathering the maddening of loss cropped his vision into a singularity, a selfishness to achieve beyond these imposing means. For a moment Jumani gazed at assembled gaunt faces, his eyes scrolling for as long as his heart could take it. Extended humbled friends, incensed cousins and whimpers from family associates who witnessed the curse of youth violence as a crippling immorality.

His eyes caught Tobi's distraught mother, who had somewhat become a second to mother him. She flung her arms high, bangles chiming and shining in contrast to a weeping greyscale of the graveyard. Her knees sunk into leaves, protected by her traditional black garb and yet her soul was starved and malnourished by gasps questioning God's behaviour.

''Olorun, kilode t'e je nko bai sele si mi? Kilode t'e je k'oju ti mi bai?'

Her wailing prayers in Yoruba only half the attendees knew, brew collective tears steering attention to her sinking misery. Such a compilation of notions set in motion by this event would direct attention to the love Tobi's Mother had spent. With his own family respectfully standing beside him poisoned with a statuesque sadness, Jumani imagined his own demise. How at this point a prize for a young Black Boys life was reaching 20 alive. An urgency to console Tobi's Mother was insight, though compassion wouldn't ignite in his solidified heart. He had never been so weak willed, instilled with a fear of action. The gathering began to disperse on the back end of Tobi's hearse, his Parents lurked to offer mature condolences drenched in the word of God. When Jumani turned to his Parents, he expected his Mother to be equally heartbroken. She cowered into her stomach, huddling herself as if she was burrowed in her Kente cloth. He realised a constant sniffing of a loose nose was her once he witnessed her dabbing just underneath her glasses swiping at her lower eyelids, in hope the tears did not break her eyeshadow. She used the other side to cushion her leaky nose. Like a child his eyes wandered to his Father to observe his reaction, expecting a fraction of comfort as the man of the house. Instead he saw a mouse, his hands also quivered with a silent fury. Fathers eyes were bloodshot red, as if pollen had shed its untouched layers onto him. Such a sight was appalling and mentally crippling, finishing any comfort that remained.