Them Little Demons

By Sanya Noel

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On those nights in my fourth year in college

I would wake up screaming-
fighting them little demons
and knocking them all out
one right after the other.

They were a persistent lot
those damned little demons
they would come in droves,
attacking in swathes.

Sometimes they would overpower me
and I would sweat and scream
as I fought for my dear life.

The worst was when
I would turn into my little brother.
I would scream in terror
Screaming that they wanted to burn me alive
which they had tried once
but only ended up
burning down our house.

The dreams wouldn’t end-
if I woke up they would come again and again
right after I fell asleep again
as if set on some replay.

But somehow I didn’t run mad.

At first it would be a glass or two
of vodka in the night
but I hated waking up
and heading to class stinking.

So I learnt a new trick
I would carry my sweating self
out of that drenched bed,
pick up my notebooks and my good old pen
tiptoe into that reading room,
and for an hour or two
in the dead of the night
and I would write the most ferocious poems

I had ever written.

Somehow that energy
of writing angry poems
in the dead of the night
in a haunted reading room
in a drenched T-shirt
would shoo them little demons away
and they wouldn’t bother me again
for the rest of the night.

≈≈

Sanya Noel is a poet and story writer. He is currently in his final year of university studying engineering at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology where he also heads the JKUAT Poetry Club, a club of creatives and students with literary interests. He is working on his first poetry anthology and at the same time also working on his first short story collection. He does engineering designs besides reading and writing and enjoys doing competitive athletics during his free time.