The boy met needs.

Some needed to speak
Some needed to be heard
Some needed to be held
Some needed to love
Some needed to be loved

When the boy spoke,  he held them,
When the boy listened, he heard them
The boy loved them all - just as they wanted.

Then the boy went away and all their hearts broke.

'Oga, wetin you bring come na'
Nothing, sorry.

'My broda, what do you have for us'
Love, only love.

'Where is my morning coffee?'
Pardon? I'm not a café.

Where did you bury it?
Your shame, your conscience?
It must be somewhere dark and deep.
Where  you are haunted by dreamless sleep.

Some with a uniform, some with a gun
Some with a smile, with a glint of fun.
All with hands outstretched, seeking, begging
Asking, threatening.
So much coded, yet crystal intent.

It has spread all over, from the janitor to the judge
All that is different are the sums and the styles.
Corruption corrupts all. It condemns all.

Yet, it spreads further, fertilised by impunity.
Fed by the hopelessness of 'how things are'
They sell their integrity for pennies,
They sell us all out for what I spend on toilet paper.

Where did you bury it?
Your future and that of your children?
What price their integrity?
What cost the impunity?

It was December and warmer than usual
  when I cried my eyes out.
First I thought of my father, who died when I was seventeen
   and I cried for my lost confidante and my mentor,
Then came my children and my gentle breeze,
  and I cried for dreams unrealised and a death unexpected,
Then came the vision of my Father-in-Law
  and I cried for the theft of a beautiful, gentle soul,
Then came the loves I passed in my cold and confused youth
  and I cried for what was, could have been and simply imagined,
Then came the poor and the desperate strangers
  and I cried for the injustice and the severed cord of humanity
Finally I sobbed for myself
  for the sadnesses I endured and the failings that I am.
oh how I cried.

I cried with wine and without,
tears salty with the grapes of Spanish hillsides

I cried with tears so hot they steamed my glasses
with a fog of self loathing.

I cried until my tears were all but gone
  until all that was left was me
  and all my flaws and my humbled greatness.