Babatunde Fagbayibo’s most recent poem to appear here was “Shoemaker” (June 2018).

Almost
By Babatunde Fagbayibo

I come before you again:
me, the Almost Man.

I have bathed in the mystic
stream called Tomorrow. I have
ate from the deep bowl called
Yesterday. I have drank, very little,
from the warm spring called the
Future. Yet I think I remain the
Almost Man.

To get to you, I have walked the
hydra lined path,  only guided by
my shaky intuitions.
I have sent messages, dropped
souvenirs picked from lands
seen and imagined, sang
songs of redemption, danced to
staccato beats . . . I have prayed on
the signal mountains, to shed the
moniker of the almost man.

I have owned and disowned things,
cried over what was never mine,
chased stationary objects,  bought
what I never liked . . . just to become
the complete man.

Then on my way to you,  I found
a roughened note, with illegible
scribbles that reads:
“the opposite of Almost isn’t
Complete. Complete is the
negation of whole,  of completeness.
Almost is the truest state of being,  the
fulfilment of purpose.
Complete is living’s truest lie.”

Now I’m before you again,
with the mysterious, cryptic note
I found on my way to you. Could
this be the true position?