All I Ever Wanted to Be

Poetry by Jonathan Chibuike Ukah

While I was still in my mother's womb,
I dreamt that I grew taller than the sky,
from where I harnessed rain in my palms;
I stared down and saw dryness scattered
upon the ground like flakes of fallen leaves,
prostrated logs of dry wood, broken twigs,
valleys of dry bones, forests without trees,
mountains without sand and pebbles,
where snakes stretched out thei…