As I look down memory lane I remember

Like a little shrub at the dawn of sprouting

My admission, left me shouting

Alas there was yet another route to explore

Just behind the great gate of learning before me

Mine is a story of four years

Overrun with challenges to clear

Individual characters to bear

Cumbered with a load of care

Yet tempting temptations everywhere

With high expectations, the exams raised my fear

But I was never to end at the rear

Not with my destiny drawing near

I was a first year student And I was in the den

Though I started out bright and enthusiastic

Life in school bruised and battered my faith my chances ever so slim

Blow after blow I barely survived school

People kept disappointing

Grades kept falling

Friends and family never encouraging

My purposed destination getting blurred with every passing minute

But at every fall with obvious toil

I buckled up, toughened up

Tightened up and wizened up

Dangers did stare at me, I did not shake

Faced it head long? Yes I did

Someone told me it was too late

But I held to my faith

Now my heart fails me for my efforts were fruitless

And though my back wasn’t on the ground

I was so close I could smell the dust

I had given my best but had to settle for less

Time slipped away with just but a year more

It has all come to this, the final lap

Unbelievable, the world seems to have come to a full stop

Though a wounded lion I strived on

I sure had to finish anyways

Aluta continua, of course it’s normal

I am now hopeless and even when it mattered most

I see myself falling into a deep dark hole of despair

Down, down, hopeless, clueless, deep, deep, down

But yet HE stretched out and pulled me up

HE says to me child I aint done with you yet

I’m here to bring you to an expected end

You don’t have to give up I’m in charge

As HE assured me I figured it out

I am not a failure, I am a success

And though everyone might be struggling

I’m different, I’m distinguished

You might hav a story similar perhaps worse

Yours might have yet a lot more ease

But you see what my story is here to make you see

Is that when it matters the most

When all the odds are against you

Lift up your hands in faith knowing

There is one who can catch you when falling

If there is a man to pray there is a God to answer

Never lose sight of who you are

Whether in the den or at the world’s frontier

You are of a different breed

A child born of the most high

A royal priesthood

A distinguished generation

-EBISIKE A. AND EZEONYEKA G.