Tag: impact

The Three Abstractions

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Time like air is boundless, existing independent of us
Helping us take note, employing us
To nurture after our to-do-list
Yet reminding us the risk
of not being
of not seeing
The thought of it as illusion only makes bold the impact on our vision
An endless circle
Old enough to seal life’s chronicles
Yet does nothing to change it
The only certified entity to bridge it.

Love like the sea, is deep
Accommodating everything cold
and warm-blooded
Not seeking its own way
Needs nothing external to become
Countless questions on its existence
Unending thoughts on its purpose
And like the absence of peace
Making monsters of those who go by without it
The true essence of its fragrance waiting always on those who have gone past feeling
to becoming love.

Death, what happens when you’re busy making other plans
Claiming more lives with its rude interruption
The least talked about of all three
Yet with each blow comes a string of thought on time and love
Each seized breath a trail of shadows to your canvas
With more questions than answers
How much time is left?
Is love evident?
What next after death?

Imani Dokubo
©2021

I have 50 Naira

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I have 50 naira
My favorite note.
She used to be beautiful
Blue, fragile and promising
But I still loved her.
Right from childhood,
50 naira held a bouquet of colorful promises
A plate of rice and stew
Plenty wraps of coconut candy
Fanta
Happiness

But then she turned on me
Had a makeover
Became glossy and glamorous
And slowly became worthless.

She used to command respect
now 50 naira has esteem issues,
hardly making any impact when she stands alone.
A once revered note that now only has value in its multiples
50 naira has let me down.

50 naira has now has mood swings
I only get to find out when I arrive at the market.
I just discovered that 50 naira and sachet tomato aren’t in speaking terms
50 naira and onions are no longer friends

50 naira is treading a dangerous path
The path of 5 naira… The path of irrelevance
I’ve tried to warn her.
She said her fate is not in her hands.
That it’s not her fault

50 naira is breaking my heart.
She has changed
Grown distant
I still hold her in my hands but can’t feel her impact in my life.

Damaris Akhigbe
©2021

FULL FOOL

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It was clear that I wasn’t full of anything
But everyone could bet that I was full of myself.

You would think I would weigh a thousand tons when the contents of me were turned into a bag and placed on a weight but I am that feather

Blown

By every wind of doctrine.

See, I had seen suits;
Seasons 1 to 5, and 6, and 7,
Yet
Nothing in the whole seasons of life could suit to cover the empty shell I hid in the well pressed excuse of the suit I wore. ME.

The real me;
Who knew nothing. Just occasional passages from the bible I could jump on, and like a frog; hip-hop on from time to time just to prove that I haven’t been listening to the ‘devil’s music’ and so I dress to kill, looking ‘smart’ on Sundays, my proof that I was scent enough. And I was worthy enough to lift up holy hands with. The cufflinks of doubts connecting my wrist to my chest.

I was unworthy! And I knew it!

I knew it, because whenever I saw people dig in the corners of new buildings around my house I saw something I would never be; WELL.

I felt alone in the world
I knew what I had wasn’t enough
I even told friends I needed space for it felt more natural to the man I was
We all did church, but when I checked how far I had come with what I called the gospel,
I knew it was useless

You are saved by him,
But you are condemned,
Unless you save yourself.

But that was before his light came
The light came
Delight came when his light came
It tasted sweet but I wept;
oxymoron like sugarcane

I got to know how good I was
I got to know who he was
And he told me who I was;

Till then I had always felt I knew so much
But the fool in me was revealed when the wise in him chose a foolish way to change the full in me.

I emptied myself and took him in
And till now,
I’m still intoxicated by the love he gave.

I can now brag about being full
And I don’t need to be full of myself to do it.

It was the first time I learnt, that the first ‘useless’ letter of him, could arrest the empty space in me and make me ‘W’hole.