Hello, My name is Niel and these are the ChristaPoet Freestyle Sessions. This year, ChristaPoet wants to give you a special perspective to our freestyles. At first, some of these poems were published as stand-alone pieces. But in actuality, each poem is an untitled part of a freestyle session. Each freestyle session is given a topic for the poems to address.

Today, we see the last of the February 25th 2022 poems. Topic was “Regeneration”.
Yesterday, we went through the ladies who all posted inside the 11th hour. So today we begin at 12:10 PM, with the CaP goddess, Chika St. Davnique:

I feel pain every time I think of my sister.

And I’m not thinking about myself when I think of her.

I’m thinking of all the ways in which she was alive.

I’m reliving the moments in which her smile lived.

And the pain I feel, it’s not selfish.


So no.


Adjust your lenses

And somewhere around this period, she got into a sensitive discussion with MeerahZoe. Now because some parts of the discussion was in voicenotes, I will give you a summary of the most important point made during the argument. The rest is honey and milk for CaP members. To join up, GoTo the “Join Us” tab

They were talking about different people’s reactions to loss. Chika said: As Christian writers, w hen we write, we owe it to the world and our audience to say what is true, and not just what we feel at the moment. Infact, whenever we want to be so subjective, we should state that this is us and just our perspective. Making absolute statements based on subjectivity has to stop.

At 12:36 PM, Chika St. Davnique made some some more poetry:

‘Please hold on while your transaction is processing…’

I’m staring lost in thought.
My mind, a multiverse of directions my thoughts wish to take.

Another line from a poem my father taught me floats into my brain…

‘We have come to the crossroad, and I either leave or come with you’

So I go with it.

The thought that we are always in the midst of a transaction. Always coming and going from an exchange. Always living or dying, giving or leaving.

The machine is still grinding, my body is still standing.
I wonder, does the man behind me know I’m lost.
Or is he lost in the endless start of things?

Is he coming and going from worries?
Is he in a loop of misdirection? And does he know the dimensions of life’s transactions?

Does he know what matters? Is he exchanging his time here for true treasures?
Or has he bought into the lie that he owns real estate in Time’s garden park?

‘Thank you for banking with us’

My fingers move of their accord. Cash in hand, I hold the physical equivalent of my time. I stroll on still lost… in thought trains.

Like, are we living or dying slowly?

And what is breathing if life is lived in beautiful moments?

Why does it come in cycles of the same patterns?

Are we living lives once lived?

…car honk and I remember to find myself.
Here.
On the road home.

Kinda like life, right?

And then, at 12:38 PM, catch a glimpse of what MeerahZoe was saying during the conversation:

This in itself is not a bad thing.
I’m a mental health advocate, and I know that self care is not selfish.
I also understand the human impulse to defend what we feel or are experiencing.

I was actually talking about the often masochistic need we have to hold on to pain even when we know it is crippling.

I have to say, I understood both their stances…but I just wrote on at 1:53 PM, probably with the mind to de-escalate the matter:

Black gems;
– made of what I used to call trash
– make me valuate my answers
– prayers sneaking outta coffins
– studded both my belt and cufflinks

What else?

I didn’t heal when you hugged me
I felt hate from my sulking
But I knew that was not important
I’m glad you haven’t kicked the bucket
Glad you haven’t kicked the bucket

Big wolves leaving bite marks
Farm hands turning lone sharks
My heart used to have cracks
Now it’s powdered like its custard
So I give it up to Father
Me I know he’ll take me farther
Speaking healing past the storm’s parts
Wash my eyes with water God spat

After a bit of silence, probably because I write mouth-shutting stuff, at 3:45 PM, Hanna Azubuike:

Please stop burning my eyes with how one should mourn a loss. You have healed, you have forgotten the pain you went through. Help with the Word if you must say something. Let her fully heal before you share how you mourned yours. You will never understand the closeness either. Let the eyes be dried before you point the picture and the different colors.

And at 5:49 PM, Imani Dokubo finesse with a few words from her beautiful:

Things die quickly when plucked from their source.
Root, the plants source.
God, the believers source.

Regeneration never happens without a source.

At 6:44 PM, the final freestyle of the day was delivered by Cap founder, Ezeonyeka Godswill, an enigmatic leader whose words always clear the air:

Writing is vulnerable. To war with the worlds in your mind so that you can birth words is sacrifice. We bear in our hands bleeding mysteries as we concise conscious constellations into careful captions. We know not all is said but what must have been said. The world wonders at writers not because it cannot produce as they do but because writers learn through the pain of introspection how to transport seedlings of thought across mind so that on the winds of communication the death of a world can find regeneration through the planting of these words.

Enough said; REGENARATE NOW, In the name of Jesus!!

Authors:
Chika St. Davnique
MeerahZoe
The Niel Quchi
Hanna Azubuike
Imani Dokubo
Ezeonyeka Godswill