Heads of garments, heads of fruits, heads of people… Heads. Heads.

You can gaze upon my face all you want. But to have a look into my head, no you won’t.

Cause you can’t.

And You’ll never know the strings of vessels that work hand in hand with strands of ligaments to pull this through. You’ll never know the gaps that had to be filled with cartilage or red blood peels all to keep this up; this straight looking, up-faced, high standing figure called a head. You don’t know.

You don’t know what it takes to clean me up. Floss after floss of cotton balls dangling up down and across my pores in zig zag motions, all to clean me, wet, dull and clingy, sticking right up to me telling me how I’m a story without a clean stop when I’m bleeding. I wonder if you really know where I’m heading at cause you don’t know me. You don’t know what it feels like to be me.

That’s how you can sincerely look forward to appreciating me with nothing. You’re expecting me to continue to spring up all of a sudden, give a genuine laugh all the time all of a sudden, have many reasons to always sit up and think for you when you would have me sit up and think for you because you’re certain doing nothing is your part while all I must do is sit up and think for you. But you have not been sincere enough to genuinely follow up my system. Now you can’t back me up.

So you accuse me and abuse me, all rightly. You treat me lightly yet you expect me to perform brightly. You conjure up your own magic and yet you can’t spell me. When Paul said to pray for our leaders, he was not speaking Anti. In the spirit he was true and he was matter-of-factly. You know we…dress up our lives with Makeup and acting, yet actually we pretend to know what our leaders are really facing. Forgetting they also have faces and dresses to act in. Believe me…

You don’t know the heart of the matter until you’ve listened to its beat. You don’t know the stomach of the warrior until you’ve fed it. You don’t know the bone of contention until you’ve chewed on it. You don’t know the joke of the oesophagus until you’ve told it. You don’t know the favorite joint until you can beer it stretch. You don’t know your own guts until you’ve spilled it. You don’t know the skin of trouble until you’ve felt it. You don’t know the slippery nature of butter fingers until you’ve heat it. You don’t know how elastic your ribs are until you’ve cracked it.

And you don’t know the breath of his shoulders until you’ve cried on it, taking in deep breaths till you can measure it. So why are you waiting? We never measured up to this, this beautiful privilege of the Good News but, the good news is He is waiting to take our hands and comfort us and equip us beyond measure in the power of His Spirit.

So He sealed it. If you know it, you can live it and get it into your head.

Adaobi Chiemelu

(c) 2018

Only true love will walk on water when you give a heart of ice
And still hold you close to its shoulders when the shatters prick your eyes
True Love is like fire, it burns
Not to hurt but to cleanse, strengthen, purify
It doesn’t make clean for the other
It does it for itself.

True love has no regrets, it’s open to hurts
Not because he loves it, but would rather take the shot
Than see her eyes dim in death
Or her nose wrinkle through sin to hell
She won’t be left with a filthy dot
True love would be spot on when it sets out to wash her dirt.

True love is beautiful, it has her nose
It has her eyes, just how he loves to see them
It gives completely it’s gifts, hoping you will make room enough for all
It walks her down the hall and calls her bride
She can be naked before it, no longer need to hide.

‘True’ love is a mirage, it’s not real
If I wonder if it’s true, it probably isn’t still

Till all I see is Love
When I see he gave his all
And as he laid his life to love me through
It remains my part to decide if it is true.

And so it is with you.

ucTRUTH

(c) 2018

EMENIKE CHINWENDU VICTORIA

(c) 2018

I have heard many talk about you,
In different shades of tales,
Some say you are a beast,
That sinks their Titanic of a muse,
Into the great ocean of doubt,
“Ajayi” said you are the desert fire,
That turned his once river of words,
Into a dry and barren desert,

Until now, you were just a whisper
Of someone’s imagination to me,
Moulded into bits and forms,
Brought to life through the valley of his mouth,
Until you crept through the window in my ears,
Blocking my writing fluidity,
Drying up my poetic prowess faster,
Than a woman hitting menopause,

Now, I set my gaze upon the stars,
Like they said you would when in my dry spell,
Hoping that there would be an inspirational discharge,
To leak from the folds of the grey matter in my brain,
And I must admit that you are the worst thing,
That ever came in contact with my poetry.

Olaoye Adeleye
(c) 2018