NIGERIA – SIMPLE WORLD

An African Depression

I woke up today

And did not get a chance to cry for myself

The news back home already was enough

Papers turning back into trees

A jungle with an ancient apex

A forest without air

I close my eyes and see the slain

Carcasses scattered across the plains

Vultures afraid to eat from the dead

The decay forming green bile

What is depression to me? A psychological horror show where i must rewatch incompetence over and over till my brain awaits any semblance of pain. When will I have time to allow myself to cry for the loved ones I lost or rejoice for the new borns I have. I feel the weight of a country on my shoulders. Is it by force? Yet I cannot look away from the constant purgatory state of a country called an African Giant.

I grew up, content and understanding of structural failure. My childhood years masked with the sweetness of innocence while quietly building a wall of trauma. As tall as the wall of Jericho.

Person matter plus another person matter full ground.

One day, bad road stop am

Another day, thief catch am

Tomorrow, na hospital kill am

Original suffer suffer

Na we suffer pass

Na Africans suffer pass

We gats suffer

Who send us?

Carry bible for head

Carry inferiority for head

Wetin my papa never see

What can I say again? I may be lying to myself, living far away from the madness that gave birth to me. Maybe i am holding onto past memories in current times, replayed to my current self to give me a sense of patriotism that i never had.

The african pain is felt in every living or dead African bones. Africans that had their purpose and dreams destroyed by cowardice held in high offices must hold the drying waters and keep going. The tears that refuse to fall to the ground, dropping into the our hearts, like lava consuming space.

Wetin man go do?

Rebellion phase

Sitting in this wide room

Statues and stained windows

I feel the space,

The air circulating

Ventriloquist projecting

Seek peace,

Seek a piece

While the world burns outside

Children tied to bamboo sticks

Teachers beheaded

knowledge spilling

sipping into the deepest roots

Earth core bleeding fire

and, we just burn rotating

Spinning new white lines

Sniff, else you will be let out through the door

Barely sitting

Pacing back and forth

Trouble changing times

Man by the altar

Vertical and horizontal pupils

Scanning and planning

Slitted and slithering

Snake or sheep?

I cant remember

I just know that i coughed out black smoke

while he continued on with his yarn of bile

First I go back home

West is not my place

Leaving behind angels

To fight and create disorder

Place of birth must be imprinted

By my own blood and swear

Equity of being a son of the soil

God gives and God takes

Balance defined and cemented

Ten toes deep and digged into its flesh

This green and white coated beast

Three birds hovering, waiting

Death of this ancient being is a must

Rotten carcasses spread across the map

A feast for all but if no one eats

I will bite and eat jolly till I fall down

Cracking my shell

All to pay back and show love

to the great ones

Ancestors held in bondage

A culture never reintroduced

A people hand cuffed at the soul

Sticks break

So do chains and whips

Mystery of the aggressor

Stomping on anything holy not from Edo

Stories of the Drone Children

Beats and bombs lament this world

In depths of pain

encrusted with insignia of war

children born lacking innocence

Believe me,

pain and despair, all for new souls

nothing left but depths of pain

encrusted to this bible called the internet

We, children always born without hope

Just hopeless, believe me

Like worms in belly

unknown to me

This war you bring tears me up

gun shells leaving my wells dry

Gradually, slowly

until starvation and famine

finally eats me up

Another child of the drone

lost to the silence of a dying world.

In Case You Forgot

The makings of a supreme

Equals extreme conditioning

Empowered and confident

Black boy

Like a tug of war

Your face, snatched

Your pain, drank

Your death, sang

Your glow, rinsed

Extreme resilience, I must say

Micro waved out from the gutters

Envisioned

Predicted,

like the messiah

You are the clock

that keeps all ticking

You are the currency

that pulsates the market

From the turn of the southern belt

To the western lagoon of Lasgidi

You are the sun

From you, life exists

Homecoming

I think about you from time to time

Every part of you

The corners, crescents

The way your eyes shines when the evening settles

Red earth: your body when the afternoon dust rests

I think about you when I’m alone

You must know

I still smell

you

Real memories now turned into star pointing

Gazing when the night is dark and the moon just bright right

Home Waiting

All the love

In wraps of evening sun

Birds feathers falling,

calling night

Night town criers

Boys racing girls over moon lit hills

Kisses between eclipses

Light paintings, ration licenses

Home, home

Barnawa town

Home, home

Where I used to lay

Home, home

Crouched between snow, now

Home, home

Can I taste you?

Home, home

Further I go

Picture perfect, tainted

Reaching further back into lenses

Home, home

Draw close,

please

My hands reaching out

Home, home

Your vision only a memory now

Old Soldier, New War

During the times that have come by, I pray for war to come. Not these new modern warfare. The old kind. Those ones stationed between battle noise and mud trenches. The zipping sounds of mortars, as empty bullet shells illuminate the blood heavy war terrain. Soldier boots marching through old places that were once called new homes.

Yes, I pray night and day. Night and day! Yes, for at night sleep refuses me and tosses me in between my past memories and a future I remain nameless.

………………………………..

These drones are empty vessels. They are transporters of bad news and death. For our souls do hunger for a reason to accept sleep, but no! Not these ones. These silent birds made with fiber like materials only look down, fall flat, and never return up.

Like thin dots silently scattered.

Only if your hands be wide as the oceans floors and you bring them together then one might see how much these dots have cost us.

…………………………………

I grow sick by the hour. Every hour eaten in silence. Every chance taken just to remain still. I grow deeper into my own anger. Madness beckons daringly close ….and I fear I will welcome it back home.

Commander Bull. ENTRY #204881

Battlefront Shagari Sector, Year 2098

Barnawa Crescent

Lowcost houses
Zincs and ceilings
Nepa and light rations
Child dreams and nursery habits
Picking nose and run arounds
Girl chasing, innocence slowly dancing
Yes, a doctor
Yes, an engineer
Yes, when I grow up
All of that I want

Like yesterday, I remember
A tee, shorts and some slippers
Up high in the tree
Mango chewing, juice stains
Eyes wide, round like the world
Always staring, drifting with the savanna
Filling heart with wavy thoughts
Stop! There!! I see her!!!
In front of the sunset
Mama coming back from work
Handbag and goodies, cross checked
Race with full strength,
Up the hill, I go
Welcome, welcome home
Strong arms gracing growing bones
Her scent carrying the Nile’s warmth
Walking back
Feeling proud
A young King with my Iye’s guidance
Yes, I remember that
Supreme Ice cream, and
Suya if her day went well

Back home
Rumbling through Santana bags
Full of fruits and sugary things
Close behind, there he is
Back and forth
Pranks and chuckles
Best friends, both up to no good

Who Knew?
Just innocence draining
Childhood filling: Stories
Yes, I remember
Yes, a doctor
Yes, an engineer
Yes, when we grow up
All of that we want

Uyi by the Crescent

Palm oil on my shirt

Okin biscuit in my pocket

On my way to school

Not a care in the world

I had forty Naira in my hands

A stroll on Zambia road

Barnawa shone bright in the morning

No Agreement

Finally, they all wanted to taste that bad magic
Sprinkled with some western dew
A formula for the envy
Hunger gave birth to a beast
A smoke screen of empty lies
You willingly throw pain at us
Yet, you refuse to answer to your own name