Neanderthal

I've been staring at the ocean

Holding onto a life jacket

Waiting for you to come up for air

Even as I hold you

I'm letting you go

Because I feel you shedding me

Like skin

We can't make homes out of human beings

So if you want to leave

Leave

I know that I am terrifying and strange

Something not everyone knows how to love

I have not stopped loving you

But I have stopped waiting for you

Be brave enough to love me

Be brave enough to let me love you

*

Maybe I'm tired of hurting you

Maybe I'm tired of breaking your heart too

But riddle me this

What do you tell your heart

When it asks after me?

I mashed-up these (rephrased) quotes from some of my favorite poems a couple of months ago because, well, shit happened. Credits to Warsan Shire, N.L.Shompole, Alice Walker, Noor Shirazie

Public Enemies

Cigarette stained lies in cadillacs

Hunger induced hallucinations on bare floors

 We were never mediocre

Always either stinking rich or

Bread-slices-for-hot-dog-buns poor

We laid down on unmade plans

But always managed to get where we didn't know we wanted to go

We were nothing, but we were everything

Our love was the choking kind and we choked alright

Suffocating on presents, table service and hotel rooms

"Let's give them something to talk about" you always said

So we lived for the applause and revelries were our cause

All we lived for, all we fought for, all we died for

Revelries!

In the end

We were living on fourth quarter pipe dreams

Anything but a dose of reality

I loved you, I hated you

You hated me but loved me even more

We were driving 120 in a 60

We had two hands held together, two in the air

Our Johnnie Walker eyes on one another and your foot on gas

 We had to go out with a bang

Undramatic break ups were for sissies but we were rock stars

So we needed to give them a show, a concert in a sold out arena

Something to talk about

Then we crashed and burned 

And to my surprise they mourned

"My God" she said "you guys were my relationship role models"

-That love affair was stranger than her sympathy

And I pray I never get to hear more ignorant words till I die-

Ash to ash, dust to dust

We spread our wings and flew apart with relief

Hoping never to re-live

The present, the past

The love

The life, the death

Of us

*The song lines are deliberate

Cheating on the sixth

I believe Jehovah Jireh

I believe a woman's temple gives her the right to choose

But baby don't abort

I still believe in man because I just don't believe we're wicked

I know we sin but I do believe we try

We all try

Frank Ocean - We All Try

***

Considering how I lived last year, I know that I am the last person with the right to give notes on religion and morality. I hope however that even through my imperfection God blessed you with something, anything. If not spiritually then maybe about shamelessly stringing words together and working harder to get better at creative writing. I also pray that you have been blessed not only by strangers but through people who love you and prove in more ways than make sense that God loves you too.

***

I'll be 27 on the 27th , here's a link to my wishlist thank yoooooooouuuuu

***

I got invited by my dear friend Chioma Chuka, to participate in her "A Post a Day" project for the month of December last year. I appreciated (once again) the pressure of having to write because someone asked me to and having to work with a format. I've posted it below as my first (cheat) post of the year and I hope you guys enjoy it. Have a blessed year!

Silence

The biggest lesson I learnt (and I am still learning) this year is silence. My filters don’t work right but life has taught me to shut my big mouth and let some things be. Not every opinion needs to be heard, not every emotion needs to be expressed and not every err needs to be pointed out. I am gradually learning to love the silence and discover the secrets to it; how to smile with just my heart, hurt passively, go around like a ninja… unseen and unheard.

 

The thing I am most grateful for this year is that I got to go home, to Nigeria. My mother is so technologically handicapped that she refuses to get a smart smart-phone or learn how to turn on a computer so I only get to see her on the rare occasion that she dedicates 30 minutes to taking and texting me a picture. Concrete mumu that my genes are, they inherited some of this disorder. On a brighter note, going home meant I got to spend time with her, get breakfast in bed, eat pounded yam nine times in less than two weeks and have someone fuss over me round the clock. Priceless!

 

I read somewhere that “people take care of those they love and those who love in return are willing to accept that caretaking”. If I could do one thing differently this year, it would be to open my eyes to the depth of my relationships. I took some friends for granted and placed those who couldn’t care less about me on a pedestal. When people love you, they love all of you, tolerate your dark side and call you out on your foolishness. Unfortunately, it took a whole and three-quarters of foolishness to for me to realize this. Most of all, I hurt some of my favorite people in the world by not sharing my problems with them. I don’t think I understood how possible this was till they confronted me about it and counted instances in the past when I didn’t let them in. I grew up as an only child and learnt long ago to depend on just myself, my mother and my God so opening up and confiding in best friends/romantic partners is new territory.

 

In the end, I feel like a 5-year old who is learning the appropriate times to speak up and when to remain silent. In speaking up, I am learning that it is alright to seek comfort from the people who love me but not to yarn my church mind ever so often. In hushing up, I am rediscovering the secrets to silence, and the quiet is deafening.