THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRL – Part 1

The most beautiful girl my experience taught smiled at me today
It has been a long class and I thought I was following till that smile
I have myriads of questions but I fear my mates might have a comic relief
So I try moving my shivering lips apart in an attempt to smile back
My grades are average so why the warmth in her smile?
My grades are average so I must be missing something a brighter student can point out
Soon after class, a tap on my shoulder, and I turn to see a pair of joy-flooded eyes
I can’t hold her gaze, my legs are trembling and I have a sudden urge to pee
I sit down, clamp my legs together with my hands between them
She seem to notice my discomfort so she pulls out my hand and holds
“What have I got myself into”, I think
Without mincing words she tells me she likes me and would want a friend in me
On the 3rd attempt at trying to talk and not recognizing my voice
I clear my throat and all I can mutter is ‘okay’
I could change classes and routes and never see her again but she has other ideas
She walks me home, my palm in hers
With each laughter and chatter, I feel at home
She tells tales too beautiful to be true about herself;
Describes her thoughts of me in ways my exposure has not afforded my imagination
I unpack boxes I leave packed because I was always on the move
Now I am home

ChyD
© 2019

OPEN LETTERS

These letters I write to you Lord are tattered
Like my heart now in pieces
And I know it sounds awkward saying this
But, I have experienced so much change
Become unpredictable like the weather
I don’t even know my mirror anymore
I am stuck in this abyss,
Now Knocked out by life, because I floored

So I need an opening or a door
To escape into your bliss
To experience those moments I once reminiscence about
But my life seems like it has gone south
The walls of my soul has come crumbling down
My crown, I now wear with a scarlet gown
And your love, I have moon walked away from

Every morning, I drown in my own tears
And at night fall I take pleasure talking about my fears
I don’t understand how I have become
A stranger to you and my self
So I can only hope my letters rise to the sky like incense
As my prayer are littered all over those papers
I hope that as I dig through your word again to unearth my goldmine
I pray that you would patiently build my faith again like a skyscraper

Keep me from being as loose as a kite blown by every wind and doctrine
Show me how to love again with great affection
So that your grace will be only song I continually play on my selection
As you teach me to walk on water again despite my imperfection
I am sure then,
That My life will finally make sense again

Isoje Victor
© 2019

Numb

There is a numbness in my head
A searing pain that threatens to strip me of my sanity
And blur my senses of whatever hold on life they have left
So much that my hands cannot thump my chest
Cannot allow me to say it is alright and that I have help within
Groaning out to remind me of who I am and why there’s life in me, but I scream

The numb becomes a pain that only allows me see the trauma
And bitterness and anger I carried for so long
That I could not forgive myself because of
And has now taken control of who I am
The numb has spread to my fingers
I cannot touch my face, to feel the life that lives in me
Cannot feel the warmth on my skin
The blood that flows through my veins

I stagger backwards and I feel a panic rising in my chest
Up to my windpipe threatening to come out through my mouth and when it does
I gasp for air, for a breath
I steady myself by a wall and with wide eyes I take deep breaths
Swallowing as much as I can force down then the tears come
Willingly, patiently, next they become sobs, loud
Choking sobs and in that moment I feel the life seep out of me
Slowly, without a fight and my legs, weak, throb
Throb so bad I can no longer stand so I slide down while hugging myself

It is not going to be alright
It won’t be alright until I see the help right within me
Silently saying ‘it’s okay’ all the while I was fighting with myself
Telling me to stop and allow him fight because my defenses are down
With the numbness and pain
But I could not see it because I took my eyes off him and focused on me
My pain, my panic, my hurt and so it’s not going to be alright
Until I stop fighting alone

IFIOKABASI OKOP
© 2019

What Faith Wears

Faith wears
Knowledge as an anklet, a jungle boot
Saves your thorn trudging soles
And lights your thistle-bush swamped soul
With glints, glimpses of rays
From the Heavens

Then faith wears
You out
Makes you see yourself as a lion
Starving in the jungle, mocked
By an abundance that attacks your tongue
A world wrestling to claim your eyes

Faith offers you sight
Makes you lay down in green pastures
To be killed, to die, and die again
As you preach peace
In a world where wild fights
Fill the heart with joy

Chukwu Simeon Chidiebere

Ikenna Nwachukwu
© 2019

CHRONICLES OF A DROWNING MIND

Dead zone
Broken soul
Scary shadows
Those are rhythms of a poor old kid
Whose ways never pleased anyone, not even herself.

No hope
Buried grace
Weak for the race
Those are top list words recorded in the word billboard of her mind
She used to be of the royal line
But now goodness turned to lime
She sees God’s intentions as the least
Her faith so rusty and loosen like an abandoned screw
There she becomes a beast that feast with the devil.

Records of heart failures
Impotent to believe the best inside
Drenched with the thoughts of discovery
Draining in the memory lane of no understanding
Tears from the sole of the heart dripping down like flood yet none sees these flood of questions buried in tears

Travelling alone in travail… I weep in smiles…
Because in my green days have I grown grey because am yet to discover the me in me

In silenced smiles I’m drown in fears because my mind has become aged in thoughts

Hold my weeping mind
Embrace my tears in warmth,
Caress me with words of rescue
Carry me in the wings of warmth understanding
For I drown in silence

Oh…save me from this destiny device
For I transit into the groove of eternity
My powerhouse drowns
I plead for restoration if that exist
I seek for redemption for this battle is beyond me

Nonye
The Alchemist
© 2019

slowly with a process

The era of greatness
Began slowly with a process
A pause, a close of the eyes

It began in all truthfulness
Not with the light nor in her rays
But in despair and in darkness

Like a hawk process swooped
down into a deep troubling dream
So full of owls and bats

Bitter it was once, bitter is it still
Remembering as brave process
Fought and fought and fell
Without rescuing success

But then, HE came very well
In the wind, in the morning bell
Lifting her from the hollow hell

Into a new dawn of ideas
A splendid tomorrow
Devoid of frown and agony

Indeed, the era of greatness
Began slowly with a process
A pause, a close of the eyes

Ugwu David C.
© 2019

Rain

It will always come regularly
Anxiety & fear bringing all its disorderly
Sending minds sinking deep like anchors
And hearts into a place of rancour
Economies crashing like MMMs
Shorter mornings, Longer PMs
Success books now providing alternates
As we search for wealth secrets
Yet our Souls are still dry deserts
Aching with pain, looking for comforts
Even when prayers rise up like incense
And our expectations, filled with suspense
Yet the wait is just too long
Our faith might not be that strong
But then incense will becomes clouds
Roaring like lions making sounds so loud
Then It comes
Pouring down its blessings
Wiping off all our facings
The rain draining our Sorrows
Fill souls that have been hallow
Washing away all our pains
Making crazy minds, accurate and sane
Our prayers are never in vain
Because we are sure it will RAIN!

Uba Victor Isoje
© 2018

TANTRUMS

Birds sing, we hear chirpings
We built our castle on hopes
Poke fingers into the face of Goliaths.
Sands still stay as our foundation
Flooding our flickering fluid imagination
With the feelings that we could dethrone the gods
Then ramble, raze down the mountain with our tongues
We smile sweetly, seeing how weak we made things with our whining
Boxing, branding, and buying their little conscience
With our endless fits

Chukwu Simeon Chidiebere
© 2018