I AM...ABOVE AVERAGE

I am “above average”
My life is just fine.
I’m trapped in the middle
With no way to shine.

I’ve never been on drugs
Or out on the street.
Nothing to rise above,
I’m already strip.

My parents are living
Money-wise, they’re well.
They’re less kind and supportive
For that, I’m in hell.

But sometimes, just sometimes
It can’t be controlled
If you’re born better off
Or out in the cold.

“Your parents make enough

Anf they cannot cover you!”
But they don’t understand,
I have siblings, too.

Too rich to qualify
But too poor to pay
I am a Nigerian, middle class,
And I’m not okay

I never thought I’d say
“I wish my life stunk;
Then people would listen
Not toss me like junk.”

I do have depression;
Now I seem unique.
But I will not use it
For show, like a freak.

I guess I’m a soft head.
And also not deranged
Do I have to use these traits
To truly prevail?

When I think I have won
The prize always goes
To the gut-wrenching story
The prejudice shows.

I may not seem helpless,
Weak, or downtrodden
But I still deserve help
To not hit rock bottom

Deep down, I’m a writer
I love to speak up
For the weak and voiceless
Who truly need help

I want to change the world
Just give me a chance
I may not seem special
Outside at first glance

It’s what’s inside that counts
Not gender or race
I’m counting on others
To offer me grace.

So what must I do?

PAY ATTENTION TO ME

I have great potential
I promise, you’ll see!

LIFE LESSONS

LIFE is too ironic for me.

There is a lot of things that i see far more contradicting than what it has to be.

For instance, to find happiness you need to feel pain and sadness first-hand before that.

We need first to make mistakes before we know that we are wrong.

We regret the things in the past and yet at that very present moment we don’t even think what are the consequences.

We find the value of others when they are gone not when they were still alive.

We have food and yet we starve our selves just to look good for others while others have no food to eat.

We fight those who violate the rights of others and yet we are violating their own rights.

We seek peace and yet we create wars, chaos and fear.
We build nations and yet we destroy others.

We tend to make our selves educated and yet, are we really educated in the eyes of others?

We put rules and yet others are exempted to those rules.

We preach the moral values and religious things and yet our actions are contrary to that.

We advocate freedom and yet we put borders.

We want to improve our health by producing medications that are far more hideous than the natural.

We teach life’s meaning and yet we don’t know one bit what life really is.

This is the hypocrisy and the irony of life that we are living. 

SUBTLETY

You smile at me like you know me. You have tried to understand me.

You decided I was too complicated to comprehend and analyze, so you moved along and agreed without hesitation that I am different.

Shocker.

I hate to tell you this, but my mind is connected and wired in a strange manner that yet nobody I have ever encountered can begin to understand.

I think of things most people have never even realized, and I realize people in their confusion while trying to realize what I already have.

Confused? Try to follow, because I lead out and only notice things that people like me see.

Thoughts drown you daily, but for me it is the only way to swim and function.

Don't assume or complicate things because you'll find yourself coming to the conclusion of an unwavering mess, constantly overbearing your chest with lies you will regret with a hanging head and sunken shoulders.

Meditation is a synchronizing sanctuary where I spend most of my time alone.

I'm sorry I can't take you along because I never have before and I don't plan on trying anything new anytime soon. They call it space.

Don't try to see through me because you'll just reach a wall and a veil of hypnotism of the life I live, and the life I am living. Just take me as I am.

Avoid the deep stuff. You don't have to understand me, or even try to because I like the confirmation of my soul entrusted within myself and in a lockbox where my heart is the key.

Just shake your head and agree with me.

Accept what you see when you look at me. I'll share my thoughts, but it will cost a penny.

Just know you will never ever come close to actually knowing me.

I wear a mask that has the craftsmanship of subtlety. You do not know me. 

BEAUTIFUL ME

                

I am a drop of sunshine in a doubt of uncertainirty.

I am a comforting voice in a crowd of chaos.

You have a hard time following me? Try harder, because I lead out.

I am redemption after facing my darkest demons in the dark.

I am a smile in the presence of my deepest fears.

I am the same person in the light and the dark.

Genuine, honest, real. I am authentic.

I am a drop of sugar water in an ocean of salt.

I am a lense of clarification in a jumbled mess.

I am a reassuring hand on a shoulder of a black cloud. I am the silver lining you missed.

I am constant, a loyal companion.

I am an embrace at the end of a hard task.

I am victory.

I am beautiful. Beautiful me.

PLAIN BROWN WRAPPERS

When they were children with nipples

Budding over the lonely muscle that would eventually betray them

In love and in death

They read magazines advertising creams
that would make them as beautiful as movie stars

Movie stars we admired

Their breasts full and brimming worlds full of oceans and rivers.

These things came in Plain Brown Wrappers

Boxes stamped with words "bursting test,"

And, even though they filled balloons with water

And threw them at one another at birthday parties

They weren’t sure whether it meant
the maximum load to be borne by the bags and boxes themselves or...

The milky bosoms with fine blue lines, like our grandmother’s Rocking china, that would make someone love them

They wondered how to mix powdered milk when they had no water.

They want to received such a box out in the desert where Oxfam tissues are used to make tea.

So that their bones would grow crooked, drifted and their chest booted.

They dont know there is a debt to be paid between standing tall and sagging low

It will be painfully full and will stand in the blood and milk-stained dust of other girls who couldn’t wait to grow

I really hope they can bear without
bursting before they walk home across enchanted hearts.

TRAVELLING WITHOUT MOVING

There’s a cold sky and gulls in the new ploughing

And ice on the stretched water glazing the fields.

The year’s nearly done and I’ve not once taken this train till now

Not sat at this window, back facing the future

Watching the landscape unravel into what’s gone.

Your death knocked the thrive out of me

Knocked the thrive out of the year as well

The sky is spreading itself out and breaking open

The way that sometimes a poem does, or music, or light. All my life I’ve been trying and trying.

This full-mooned daylight is thin and cold
as the smell of a lemon

And I’m tired of fretting the mind over mysteries

I am nearly ready to give up and not understand

There’s an ash by a wall in a field above our house.

I go there in the season to find you in the empty branches

In the way the tree stands to the sky

The dogs quarter, snouts dropped to the smell that has them by the nose

I’m not far off that myself - hard on the scent when the bird has gone.

This is the holiest week of the year,
this descent into dark, into the formless heart of the matter

Our souls enter our bodies, hungry for experience

They run us around like the mice that live in the skirting and skitter across the floorboards in the stillness

Their quick, sure darts scoring the emptiness behind my gazing the eyes

I am travelling, am moving in stillness.
I am sure travelling in a train to bliss nest.

MY MAMAS HOUSE

My mother’s house is full of birds and lodgers

Sitting on the stairs, sleeping underneath the beds

And shinning up the drainpipes at the back

She’s dowmnstairs, cooking on a disconnected stove

With a cast iron skillet full of earrings, small pearl buttons lost from shirts, and silver collar studs.

My mother’s wardrobe’s full of ball-gowns

Sandwiches and biscuit barrels full of instant coffee, there’s granulated sugar in her dancing shoes

And mashed corn with black stew in the kitchen

She’s counting out her trifle dishes, knitting needles, crochet hooks, the food comic book and sixpences.

My mother’s landing’s full of women, queuing for the lodger

The young one with the torch and cycle clips; she’s looking for an egg and sweet patato pie and a Thermos flask of tea to tide them over

while the lodgers on the stairs begin a song her father sang

With choruses, rude verses, all the twiddly bits and harmonies.

They’re singing Dan maraya to her, we love you so dearly ma

while she scoops her creamy pap into amber sundae glasses

Adds angelica and violets, tiny roses made of marzipan and coffee flavoured biscuits, shaped like fans.

I was eternally safe...
In my mama's house

MEN FAIL TO REMEMBER THE COLOR OF EYES

Why Some Men Cannot Remember The Colour Of Eyes

Men are really listening all the time.

Their wives see them staring at the trees,
rivers, small sections of the garden, even sheds.

This is because the stars reside there, the beginnings of days

The immense moments in the lives of insects

Leonardo assembling a kite in his mind.

Of course they work to conceal this, hiding behind agendas

Computers, sports and conclusive results

They can see beyond the colour of eyes

Mosaics of minds that surpasses words

And even memory itself. The miracle of life can be encountered in a card game.

On the lake’s surface, in the second bottle of olive, in the recollection of the tree house

In a garden that no longer exists. Thus bikes and cars are constantly
Speeding.

Thus that moment before the new
joke is told.

Thus terrible ties and bird’s eggs and staring through

The immediate stutter as if their dead fathers just called to them.

I wonder why men fail to remember the color of eyes.

WHEN I CLOSE MY EYES

When I close my eyes , I see your beautiful face

It makes me so happy

When I close my eyes, I see your amazing smile

It warms my heart

When I close my eyes, I see your intoxicating eyes

It takes my breath away

When I close my eyes, I see your backward glance

It makes me smile

When I close my eyes, I can see you shimmy

It makes me laugh

When I close my eyes, I can see us together

It fills my heart with joy

When I close my eyes, I see my future

It is full of you

When I close my eyes, I see you walking down the aisle

It is my dream.

MEN FAIL TO REMEMBER THE COLOR OF EYES

Why Some Men Cannot Remember The Colour Of Eyes

Men are really listening all the time.

Their wives see them staring at the trees,
rivers, small sections of the garden, even sheds.

This is because the stars reside there, the beginnings of days

The immense moments in the lives of insects

Leonardo assembling a kite in his mind.

Of course they work to conceal this, hiding behind agendas

Computers, sports and conclusive results

They can see beyond the colour of eyes

Mosaics of minds that surpasses words

And even memory itself. The miracle of life can be encountered in a card game.

On the lake’s surface, in the second bottle of olive, in the recollection of the tree house

In a garden that no longer exists. Thus bikes and cars are constantly
Speeding.

Thus that moment before the new
joke is told.

Thus terrible ties and bird’s eggs and staring through

The immediate stutter as if their dead fathers just called to them.

I wonder why men fail to remember the color of eyes.

WHEN I CLOSE MY EYES

When I close my eyes , I see your beautiful face

It makes me so happy

When I close my eyes, I see your amazing smile

It warms my heart

When I close my eyes, I see your intoxicating eyes

It takes my breath away

When I close my eyes, I see your backward glance

It makes me smile

When I close my eyes, I can see you shimmy

It makes me laugh

When I close my eyes, I can see us together

It fills my heart with joy

When I close my eyes, I see my future

It is full of you

When I close my eyes, I see you walking down the aisle

It is my dream.

FRUSTRATED POET

It just depends on how many eyes you have

Eyes Holes in a wall give you a glance into a skeptical dimension

You see through, but have to ponder on what it is that you're seeing

The dimensions of life are an infinite amount

It just depends on how many eyes you have

And how your line of vision is smiling

The night skies are your eyes

Your eyes hold the brightest lights of eve

With every blink you keep a secret of space

The first look you gave took all my time

And till my last breath, I will always be grateful to see the blissful dusk.

LIVE FOREVER

The drum begin to beat

Faster by each moment

Surrounded by this unbearable heat
I run in sight of my future triumph

Time plagues me
As i dash over logs, bushes and rocks

Each breath that leaves my body
I could feel my will lock

My heart is the only thing that keeps me going

My body is weak
But my passion is forever flowing

No matter the tear that my body must endure
My heart keeps beating

For victory is what it longs for...

Thirst, pain, heat or deprival of sleep
Won't hold me back as i race forward

Even time can't compete
With my glorious reward

As if my body and heart became one
My ailments retreat

Leaving me feeling as though i am flying
Time continues to try to make me a fool

But i grin as the sun fades
That time has forgotten one rule

Even with its feeble baricade
I will always defeat it every time

For even though its currents and forces are strong
My will and determination are stronger

Also as long as passion and desire rings through me like a never ending song

I will die and fade away never
For i will defeat death as well
For i will live forever.

4 LETTER WORD

I once talked to a man
Who said love was but a 4 letter word
“That’s all it is, you say?
That seems shallow and absurd.”

He laughed at my reply
And looked me in the eyes
“It’s just a 4 letter word you see,
A 4 letter word like ‘glee’.
It means nothing more
Than ‘seed’ or ‘door’
‘Cause it’s just a 4 letter word.”

I thought for a moment
At the words he said.
But what he meant
Made no sense in my head.

“But love is a feeling that stays
Not just a word you say
It comes straight from your heart,
It’s not as simple as ‘line’ or ‘cart’
So why would you mention
What seems a deception
Of this 4 letter word?”

His eyes sparked a light
As he listened to me speak
I gazed, confused, at the man,
Not sure what to think.

“A dozen people I’ve met,
And they all have their minds set
That what I say is true,
But love means something to you.
Thank you for having some heart,
And not just agreeing from the start,
‘Cause love is more than a 4 letter word.”
 

T

TRUE LOVE

True love passes all the limits of understanding
True love expresses ever lasting loyalty
True love hurts but can also learn how to heal
True love weaves the highest dreams
True love accepts the good and bad in another
True love only wants what is best for each other
True love lends sympathy and forgiveness
True love washes away tears that have been not shed
True love erases the pains that have been kept hidden
True love turns an ignorant boy into a mature young man
True love softens the heart of an innocent girl to a nurturing young woman
True love never lies
True love never ignores
True love sees love when hair turns white and hands tremble
Most of all True love never breaks promises until the vows have been broken
 

LOST THOUGHT

I can no longer sleep, with the waves in my head.
I’m scared to know how long I’ve been a drift.
I see, but hold my breath that it wasn’t all fake.
Were you sent to drown me.
When I already crowned you as mine.
I only wanted what I never had.
Serpents shift, Lone wolf eyes set forward.
That’s where our circle began.
Did you ever see the real me.
Do I even know you, it all seems a distant memory.
The lifelong lesson, being played out on me.
I let you pull my strings, and watched as you put on the show.
Feeling it deep inside, when the hard eyes hit my soul.
The eyes of disappointment, and disapproval.
I needed your love so badly.
Knowing that I was your message in the bottle.
How many punches I take, too make my past wrongs, right.
I try to stay a float, and seem to sink deeper.
Curiosity is breeding cats & killing barking dogs.
I can’t remember when I last felt myself.
 

FREESTYLE

Alone in the dark I can see your face
It’s about the only place
The image remains
It’s a vast empty space
Where our love has maintained
As my mind slips away
I drift in my own depths and I stay

For in the light of the day

Reality forces you far away
So I pray in my faded dream I may lay
With my horrid demons you may say
Because I am sinfully in love with the way
Your heart starts simply pounding away
I wish it would stay forever this way
But it’s a deceitful rest for I awake where I have laid
Alone in the dark with only the image of your face
 

DUST

You’ve left now, you see,
Left reality,
Now you exist in between

You’re outside the in
Where dreams must begin
Where nothing can truly be seen

Time is not real
Life is surreal
But really, here “real” can’t exist

There is no tomorrow
No joy and no sorrow
Please, try to feel, I insist

I hope that you find
What you left behind
(You should’ve enjoyed what you had)

Oh great, now you know,
There’s no where to go
(Your life really wasn’t that bad)

I know you believe
That now you must leave
You have to, you need to, you must,

But though you endeavor
You’ll be here forever
Where everything’s nothing, you’re just a dust.

WINGS OF LOVE

Kiss me again in the shimmering rains,
The wind is singing her love songs again.
Come back to me like a joyful dove,
And kiss my lips with tenderness and love.

Your love is like the sea playing on many shores,
Your heart sailed away into my heart’s door.
Sea birds are playing on the gorgeous beach,
Your fictive love is hard to reach.

I am the wind singing in your heart,
Tie me like a chain never to part.
My love for you is an unending ocean,
You are a choir singing my poems of devotion.

Invade me once again to heal my pain,
Captivate me with your beauty in the rains.
A flower is born and a flower will die,
Let your love not fly like birds in the skies.

Fly away like an eagle but come back to me,
Kiss me again like the waves in the mesmerizing sea.
 

UP THE JUNCTION!

you’re mysterious
perplexing, mesmerizing
and close to the bone

you’re captivating
enchanting, riveting
and near the knuckle

tell me why you left?
left and went up the junction?
I should have told you

that I am spellbound
fascinated and
forever enslaved.