“It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love and protect each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”

—	Assata Shakur

talk to me

how long will you run from me

i wither at the absence of your voice

 

“It matters not
Who you love
Where you love
Why you love
When you love
Or how you love
It matters only that you love.”

—	John Lennon

And,
I often talk to the sky.
I thanked the harvest moon for you.
I looked at each star,
and I visualized each scar;
healing you with grace,
I sank into a roses bloom for you

Melanie Monji

“I must remind you that starving a child is violence. Suppressing a culture is violence. Neglecting school children is violence. Punishing a mother and her family is violence. Discrimination against a working man is violence. Ghetto housing is violence. Ignoring medical need is violence. Contempt for poverty is violence.” - Coretta Scott King
 

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I dare to tell of their secrets

that handbag full of mystical revelations
untold stories of our once confined forefathers
those concealed behind every door

buried in the pits of their left pockets

Snugly laying at the back of their throats

the greatest taboo of our time

forgotten at the tips of their tongues

I dare to make known their shady secrets

those leading to a black man’s enlightenment

skilfully disguised in those highly confidential textbooks

those never to be spoken of tales
unseen behind every banned revolution song
those enveloped in bruises
beneath every pillow
behind broken promises
beneath every breath
wrapped around silent voices
of unsung heroes

The dithering fabrics of resolutions

Earlier this year, when I vowed, like everyone else (because it’s okay to be counted with the masses sometimes for the sake of embracing the spirit of unity), to let go of every being/thing not deserving of me or me of them or it, I was sitting in my room taking life as lightly as I always took my breakfast, that never really took on the strawberries, muesli and plain yoghurt guise. My nonsensical supposedly selfless plan (to save my cracking heart) as silently as it was conversed with self, was to forget this oath the minute I remembered it and I would blame it on my excessively sober heart that once became high on fireworks the same day it became victim of broken promises but it was already too late.

My heart had already made its pick and I could tell I was also being hand-picked out from other people's hearts like you’d pick a fly from your grandmother’s porridge pulling that awkward disgusted face and it more or less wounded me, not because I felt as inferior as that fly as no one can ever reach that such a pit of worthlessness, that level of inferiority no matter how destitute they may be to the world and its residents because as thorny as life is, roses still grow and just as beautifully and wildly as they have when the saviour was still of flesh and also it did not hurt because I wanted to stay as no one ever wants to stay where they are not desired but it somehow hurt because I felt I wasted so much time cleaning out the floors of a house that never even treated me like a stranger because I would gladly become a stranger than no one at all.

 

It sort of stung because I spent my days trying to sniff out secrets that were never mine to know bargaining for trust or anything along those lines that would hopefully result in belonging. It frustrated me because I spent my Sunday devotions praying for answers that even God wanted to keep me away from, not even bruised knees made me worthy of their time, I foolishly became superwoman trying to save the very birds whose freedom depended on my letting go. It slightly hurt because I cashed my fortunes in the form of time or whatever was on request mending broken mirrors to households that would rather stay broken.

My heart sort of tore because I chanted beautiful melodies to dead children who found death more sweeter than my pest of presence, that I played the saving grace to a half empty hearts and I wept greatly when it hit me that perhaps someone out there feels exactly the same about me, knowing I will never know their identity in order to make right or better yet justify my errs because even our chief adversaries can dress themselves in convincing smiles.

I've become so reliant on my love for you

as if you were my well of life

that every word in my poetry is a dedication and salutation to you

and to your bravery for staying with me

with all my imperfections

dripping from head to toe

Your very existence

is the recitation

of my own poetry.

Your mere presence,

my offering to the world.

the tone of your voice,

the climax of my craft.

My solemn lyrics,

4 legged as they stand,

are entrenched in your every vein.

Hidden beneath your every breath,

dwells my mesmerising verses,

wrapped faultlessly around your every heartbeat

 

My musings, what they call good rhymes,

are enthused and founded on every bit of you,

seamlessly and scrumptiously detailed in my thoughts,

Strand by strand.

I lay awake

against the bitter cold

of your silent conversations

numbing my very presence

my inner toes still wringing from the morning dew

my weary limbs trembling more perilously

than the resentment of yesterday's regrets

scribbling down every memory of you

the scent of your pitch black skin

mystified deep inside the pages of your flesh

beautiful bewilderment

as I yet again run to my favourite place

your inner thighs

A letter to old self

This standing before me is a perfect face of those moments where one should allow God to speak louder than pride as I gradually realize the truth about myself and my lack which completely is your presence. I will not dwell (though I desire to) on saying those sweet words that mend even the most shattered of hearts as  you might not welcome them and justly so. I find myself looking staring at your thoughts and memories that you've made possible through your broken short lived smiles hoping to find a clue as to how to find what I have lost but the emptiness of your silent words and piercing absence as I come to accept that you lavishly breathe without me make me lose myself even further. Visions of you have faded in mirrors, in clean waters and the winds have stopped carrying haunting sounds of voice around as if you were heaven’s favoured lipstick.

Nonetheless I didn't write to you to bother you with my lonesomeness or to boast about the miraculous strength I carry with me in every battle and how your absenteeism has oddly made me value the faces that stare at me in the mirror because they know me better than you ever could, because even in those rainy days of agony they are still brave enough to smile at me when we meet, the kind of bravery that was always way out of your league. I wrote to say I still find myself dancing the fading tone of your voice, playing your favourite song and to confirm that I still embark on my religious Sunday morning journeys looking for that old phone of mine that has your number, that number you never got to giving me, the phone you never bought for me. You always struggled with keeping to your word.

 I find myself consumed by anxieties of what may have been had I become what you sought yet strangely this morning I found myself ridding myself of your lifeless skin I wore around my flesh to remind myself that we were once a beautiful union though we constantly shed wrecks of glasses in every tear in every battle for we never were in unison, hoping you’d come for me as you last said in that letter you never really sent, though I still believe that you are capable of keeping to your promises. Every shower has become an ancestral ritual that cleanses me off of all that you ever stood for. I thought you should know.

 As I have pointed out earlier, this wasn't to bore you with my apparent lifeless words; this is to assure you that I carry memories of you in a bottle that’s half open, that you still come up in conversations over cups of solitude and that I have well taken care of myself since you left. Also know that I have become the exact opposite of your aspirations that you hid under every prayer you uttered against me, that I have been bravely stupid enough to make a wrong turn to victory that she follows my every footstep haunting me with good news like the Gospel.

To sum up this little cold letter, all I want to say is “Hi Stranger, I am sorry for your loss. I wish I had words bold and brave enough to fill the void in your heart, I wish I had prayers worthy enough to mend you and make whole the pieces of your soul. It will be alright, sooner than you think. Take care of yourself.

I watch you when you sleep

in that awkward a stare kind of way

that I almost can taste your dreams,

that bitter- sweet flavour of contentment

and wonder if you dream of me as unswervingly

as I dream of you at the noon of every daylight

 

 

All I want is to hide myself in you,

deep inside the pages of your flesh,

hoping no one ever finds me there.

You are my cascade of inspiration

My every drop of happiness

I never knew what death and life really meant

until I drowned and resurrected in your unbroken fondness

that day when I finally let myself succumbed to the omnipotence of your bosom

You are the best story I've ever told
every day I gather fragments of your soul
in every laughter, behind every door and beneath every breath.

truth or dare

I dare you to love me like your Mother never loved you

Fervently mishandle me like your beloved tune, singing those strawberry lyrics you can’t claim knowledge of

To show me a kind of love you never learnt at birth

That black leather-like kind of love not even birth marks, spiritual chords and resemblance can contain

A kind of love so peculiar not even our first names can decipher

So we both can claim knowledge of having loved better than our Mothers

The love I have for you

runs turbulent down my sleeve up to my skull

to sometimes blur me of how great you can be.

 

The sound of your skin

I have opted to conceal beneath my tongue

so I can still taste you even when you are away.

The tone of your speech

I have wrapped around every gift box

so I can never forget the wonder of your first word.

The cocoon breaks open

A cracked rear window on my turquoise blue ever so dirty Toyota 3-door hatchback, a man handcuffed with blood stains on his shoes and a lot more on his face sobbing on the ground dodging a few kicks and fists in vain, an angry mob of security guards who were delightedly the root for his bleeding nose and a cracked lower lip was the best way fate deemed relevant to nurture my the new born '2013'. Having uttered the greatness of that lonesome day before it could even wear the shades of the night seemed to have en route my bliss to a place more suited for the wretched and as the night elegantly dressed the day my battle was to keep my tears in control than the bathing in laughter that I had already prophesied.
 

Everything happened so fast, the one minute I was in a restaurant having a great time dining with my friends on an impromptu gathering, the next I was running to my car, too shocked to even shed a tear, interceding, praying that the damage may be bearable or rather within my pocket's reach. Before I could ask what had come to be I was being convinced to report the man bleeding and wailing on the ground for his felony and in no more than 10 minutes the officials were there, one of the security guards took it upon his stride, after witnessing my reluctance to pursue the case any further, to phone the police and I groaned in despair.

Was a broken window reason enough for me to send a man behind the cold jail cells though he would perhaps be united with his mates and laugh his way to bail? Was it enough reason for him to sleep in a bed not of his own? Were the kicks and fists not already a steep price for the felony he kept denying? What if he memorised my face and decided to one brutal day come for me, dramatic as it sounds? All those supposedly daft questions rang in my mind as I parked outside the police station, still struggling to recover from tremor's dominion.

The last time I dared or rather bothered set my foot in any police station was when I was applying for assistance funds through NSFAS at the University as they sought an Affidavit and a certified ID copy to oath my Mother's inability to pay for my fees and that was over 3 years ago, police stations aren't at all my ideal hang out spots so I by all my might choose to ignore that they even exist even though one is just down the road from my mother's house, in fact I have never found men dressed in bullets, misdemeanour and arrogance appetizing to the eye that I don't even bring them up over cups of solitude. Apart from feeling over-dressed and looking dangerously gorgeous, the experience peaked my fear of the authority houses beyond any known levels and the police man insisting to write the statement for me as slow as a snail didn't make it any sweeter, leaving me feeling as empty as a hopeless man trying to be hopeful.

 After about 2 hours, irritation seeping uncontrollably through my pores and dodging the hooligan's sight, I was free to go home, eat and snooze off to a place less cold and less scary. The promises of my case number being sent to my phone in an hour’s time then have not yet materialised as expected and I, contrary to my girlfriend's belief, have not yet come to know the virtue of this patience that my priest preaches about in every sermon. I will never fully comprehend why the keeping of promises has become such a thorny task for the mankind or has the man's word become as immaterial as life when death comes? To what do we now hold on if even the sound of our words has become too hard to trust and grasp?

When the sun and the moon victoriously collaborated to page the year to new, I swallowed a pebble of revival and I expected a free flow of things as perfectly as the fish swam through the River Nile. Having made my requests and resolutions known to God and the gods on eve of the new born child ‘2013’, I anticipated more freedom of thoughts than the confinement I had sailed on the year ‘2012’and the sudden rain showers and bruised knees served as confirmation that my supplications were heard and would possibly be attended to with great urgency.

 

On the 1st day of the year, broken bottles told more tales than what the voices of my neighbours could let out, while some wailed as they bathed in regrets that the closure of an old chapter had offered them, haunted by the walls they claim spoke to them in syllables of loud silence. I, on the other hand, was high on life, thoroughly sunken in the goodness of my maker and his candy sweet promises, thinking big and already living a dream that was yet to come true as I sat in my room texting "Happy New year" messages to whoever treats me like I matter.

My plans for this year are big, bigger than all the dreams I've had in my entire existence of 305 months and my strategic corporate expedition to Japan for a year attests to this and I am more thrilled than fearful. I have additionally decided to let loose and bury myself in faith of the higher power in all spheres of my life. Last year was a never ending funeral in my heart, constantly mourning the death of bigger significant pieces of my life chasing shadows of what seemed to be but turned out to be not and any more deaths would put me to indefinite slumber so I have chosen to yield my entire soul to the one who made this life possible from the onset, unquestioning that He will again carry me through the stormy and sunny weathers like he has successfully done in the past.

In my attempts to save what is still remaining of me I have dared to believe in myself, to be comfortable in my own skin, to be perfectly naked to fate’s embrace and to stop comparing myself with other people and with the things the world has made more attractive than being real, perhaps that will help mend the shattering glass of my faith. I have grown weary of lowering my gears to a pace that everyone else but God deems acceptable as if I was founded on men’s standards. I was not formed to be accepted and to survive, I was crafted to live and to love and to be thankful, to live life plentifully and with great pride, to love with less caution and augmented passion and to be thankful of every passing second that leaves me alive.

As I put on my great armour of confidence, on the mark to more opportunities, I'm overcome by waves of joy mixed with nerves as I let myself drown in the truest depths of myself for the first time in my entire being. But nonetheless I have leapt beyond the borders of ordinary in my thoughts uncertain as to how I will hold on to such greatness by my mere two hands that are already leaking from the earth's blessings. I deem this is that point where I surrender more than just my burdens to my creator and to ask of him to help me carry all the blessings He's showered me with, the most daring move I'm yet to comprehend, trusting the Almighty with both my troubles and triumphs.

Everything that has come to be so far is enough to convince me that the worst is crawling my way but having understood the great Alchemist Paulo Coelho when he said that when you passionately want something the universe will conspire in your favour, I stand assured that this truly is just one those mishaps that should happen to a person even if its once or twice a year so we can claim knowledge of strength and become great witnesses to those currently drowning in our former pits of despair though I am still haunted by the sadness of people upon learning that they were just "festive budgets" and that the new summer love they had faith in had to come to a close as soon as the bottles popped open in the peak of the night in honour of the new year but how could they not have known that summer love was never intended to live through the other shades of the year?

 

I carry on my head a bucket of old regrets

a burden so hard not even prayer

can save me

Perspectives of what was

linger longer than what is

how I wish yesterday smiled a little longer

Swing me away from time’s distractions

even I ache to dwell in explosions of righteousness

wicked as I am

Bathe me in your steamy love

until my heart is wrinkled

and become my religion