NAIJA BLOG

 What does a broken soul look like It is the thousand-year stare from empty dead eyes, vacant and numb  Triggers playing on a loop of tortured memories It is the tiredness of the rested And the rest of the tired... Weary from thoughts that line up like executioners  each shooting to kill It is the weariness and the tearless cry That rips through you and you talk to yourself Because no one wishes to hear It is the quiet despair that sits with you wearily at  noon You welcome sleep from the turmoil Alas sleep itself is full of torment so you wake unrested...and tired  The days are bleak...the future tortuous...the past tormentous and the present enveloped in an unending blanket of pain You call to heaven...the silence is darker than hope...

 I tried to create happiness but sadness came and enveloped me in its clammy embrace it stayed with me faithfully as I moved away and stayed with me like the shadow of death I saw happiness flee away I chased and chased but its feet  were so flit I tried to cage happiness by building a fortress of warmth and laughter  but sadness came and filled our home with grief sadness embraces me in the quiet of the noon and I weep and weep as I grieve and grieve pain that has nestled down in the  small of my chest and mourn and cry at the bleakness all around me 

 I thank you for showing me The side of unending pain that  Cut through the seven layers of the soul  The pain that goes on and on And leaves no tears I thank you for killing me with searing words And burying me in my despair That made me wait for the next tear I thank you for the lost years of the lost voice Of the broken hope that I groped for myself And found the image of you molded into the depth of my soul  I thank you for the betrayal ,the market square humiliation that left my soul bare and naked amid sneers and jeers I learnt from you to wall away To walk away  Even when you came back broken by life You found the shell you planted Soulless and hardened by you And I laughed at your fall Without mirth or anguish I thank you for the  lesson of life I am Still learning To be cruel to you and laugh as you crawl in throes of pain I learnt from you all lessons you taught  I learnt to use all the lessons you have

 why do we give too much credence to men the starters of wars the killers of truth the greedy, lustful and covetous we spend our years hoping in the fallible  making the fallen our heroes, they too are lost... and afraid of the death that stares at them are afraid of the age that charges at their reflection daily live in fear of the darkness that pursues them in the dark of the night we are all fallen and in darkness and we grope like the blind for answers Fate has scattered on the floor we are all blind lost and fallen and not one soul has the answers we all seek 

 Drawn to the lights The perfect and the beautiful Filled with covetous longings  Envious of the greater beings who Have all the shiny things.. We are led by passion, lust and wants We are led by the self-lovers, self -loathers Self-indulgent A world led by the lost We have failed to listen to the questions Our forsaken mind asks We do not discern reality from illusion We cannot decipher right from the wrong  Our leaders are vain and perfect on the digital screens And fill our empty ears with empty words.. We are led by the lost

 In their eyes you will find the questions you never asked The answers you always sought  In their smile you will find the hopes  You thought were lost And the courage to face the world  In their little hands you will find the strength you never had And the guiding light in the midst of all darkness These little beings with eyes so big and toothless smiles are our guardians through these stormy seas They will teach how to love And what love is They will show you how to be strong..stronger than Hercules But softer than water They will show you the secrets of the future You will not live to see.. They will heal you of your pain Your self They will heal you

Some say Karma is real, you reap what you sow, But men are not bothered by this old wives tale, existence is for self,trailed by seas of  tears ,sometimes blood, most times sorrows, this era of self. You were great once, a mustang wild and untamed Your word was law and you towered like a rock..  Even when they called for your head The young ones who shouted, cried and whimpered as they died... 8 unnamed...you did not go But they did.. nameless and forgotten... You prospered in wealth Were courted by power.. and Were forgotten.   But Nemisis is a Mushin Fighter... Dirty and shameless.. It was her turn to bare you naked to the world.   So we learnt you are now a shell and imprisoned by your love..  How you are slapped and can't say a word..the mighty Ali...I shake my head.. The cooks, garderners are only too glad to tell your tale to a gossip-thirsty world.. You are a shell Ali, old, scared, and imprisoned, devocalised  by life...you cry alone... Yo...

 I write you this love song  because you never let me go... I deserted you like ungrateful lover.... but you haunt me in the comfort of my abode...you draw me close.. I dream of the sandy roads of Bolori, The old woman who gave me kosai and doya The house of Ismail and his unmarried sisters who were in their twenties harangued for never getting married Maiduguri I dream of my crush seated in his majalisa... Of trekking to school and eating farah..spicy grasshoppers with yaji... And reading ikebe supper, Dauda the sexy guy... Maiduguri..I wake up one night at 3:am and see a cripple from my window going to the mosque...what happened to you cripple...forever etched in my 13 year old brain.. Maiduguri..we would go to auntie Dijes and trek to Wulari for church, until we learnt that someone was crucified on the railway tracks... Maiduguri..you were magical and kind... In you I dreamed and hoped hiding away from unfathomable sorrows for a heart to young to bear... You will come this ...

 I saw the eyes and they showed me the depth of your soul They were Di Vinci's Mona Lisa With them I could fathom whatever I desired It was the desolate  The gate to hades encrusted in diamonds.. What happened to you nameless one with the beautiful eyes that held a thousand hurts.. Was this your goal...prancing on pink with rent boys in defiance with your broken beautiful eyes... Your eyes are my canvas for my art.  Sad and beautiful... Cruel and desolate... No one listens in this world of ours.. So we chase primal passions and destroy ourselves in our pursuit of purchased happiness, stupored joy,  fatal embraces.. Your eyes showed me a soul struggling to be free. From you

 You will learn how to nurse your hate Like a child that suckle your bosom and watch it grow and make you strong  Till they see the embers in your eyes burning brightly and they slink away defeated  You will learn how to look at the stars and don't see them and look at the moon and don't see it but see the voices and their words and their actions and their regrets plat like the loop of an Instagram reel  You will look at the eyes of your son and really see his soul And look at mischief of your daughter and really laugh And your heart will burst for joy Yet your heart will fear the fear of a mother  Always afraid You will learn to stand up tall  When you are broken  Colour your eyes after the tears And find that joy is on the broken roads of ushafa hills Walking with your son and your heart will leap with joy Finding layers of things you never knew  You will learn that most friends are false Most brothers are traitors  Your circle is envious Y...

 You were a fixture at the junction eighteen years ago, I in the midst of my struggles, you pot-bellied, with fair skin of the southerners I passed you then not caring, non-seeing, I was in the midst of my struggles, I passed you when I went from Gwarimpa to Wuse  To  the plaza  To the market, To work When I searched for work in those bleak days of Sky Memorial           You were there planted, firmly on the tar intersecti0n 5 years, 10 years, 15 years  you were still  rooted at the spot and then I wondered what made you rise  day after day,  with eagerness, and happiness that turned to despondance and dread and then heaviness and weariness as you saw years of life, fly by in minutes and days, you looked thin, and scruffy, and i wondered if you were sick or if you had stepped on an oga's toes for you to be banished to the  spot forever I saw you today, at another spot, hurry, you had moved,  I threw you some...

I await the coming of the distant ones, pale like mmuo with eyes like mmri my goods sit patiently under the palm trees  while we wait for the messengers I have sent to find out if those ships have come the women are black like unyi and their teeth gleam like cowries on the river banks,  they sit on the found and wail all day,  longing that their babies suckle their breasts the men are tall and strong, ogologo my son whispers when he passes them broken giants, reddened eyes in despair and fear, they are destroyed like the ill-fated palm fronds trampled by goats even before they sprout, I await the messages from the distant shores, that bear me good tidings and take from me this cargo of humans to a land unknown

The colour of poverty is brown, dusty brown, dark brown, the dull brown of layered dirt, rotting roof, hopeless brown speckled with slimy green the texture of poverty is grainy, dusty like the streets of untarred roads that stretch for miles and miles the smell of poverty is the gutter smell of feces, stagnant water, rotten food, lack, and indolence the aura of poverty is squalor, sloth, despair, despondence, the folding of hands despair, the heavy sigh of despair and bleakness, the people of poverty are defeated, wearied and weighed down by Life and its Sisyphuisan existence broken minds, healthy bodies  from bacteria resistance,  defeated eyes, young-looking old men in threadbare clothes, perpetual suffering mothers children too wise and too old, and the life-hardened young drugged up and soulless whose scars tell the tales of murders, thefts and stabbings, the dogs' litter starved, pregnant, and vacuous like the inhabitants of Poverty.

Seven months pregnant, off a long-haul flight,  mourning  my father, invitro my child was sick, with a hole in his heart; I arrive at the hotel in Dublin, the Polish receptionist says I can't stay even with a booking with my Mastercard with my cash, I can only stay the night, Penang is hot, with friendly faces here I wear my skin in comfort I don't stick out like a stain, Dubai is full of shops,  no one cares, I shop till I drop, with my first, in vitro, my second (in vitro) my third at six months, I think we got Covid, because we coughed and coughed, Turkiye like the Muslim states welcomed me,  I ate roasted chestnuts and got lost in the Grand Bazaar, with shops that sold the same things with shopkeepers who looked like Arab princes and shop boys who knew all the tricks Ghana was hot and sane till they heard you speak,  their eyes narrow because you are a Nigerian, Saw the Elimina Beach and rubber plantation where the trees swayed like slender dancers in nature...