BROKEN HEARTS

I know where broken hearts go
I know where the battered live
I know where the forgotten reside
Come see, where shattered spirits live
I know where the living corpse abode.

They live in the memories that once were, and could have been.
They stay in places where happiness hurts and pleasures, pains.
They go to the land of the desolates,
Peering into the past,
Longing to be saved once more,
Hoping that the past could rebirth the present,
Wishing that the future has no claws.

I know where the broken meet.
I know where the fallible rendezvous.
I know where the scorned live.
I know where misery resides.

They meet in the fear of strangers’ dates,
Wanting a hello, not to bid goodbye.
They reside in the doubt of friends turned lovers.
Worried that a line crossed means, strength lost.
It dwells in the laughter of scorned hearts,
In “drink only” buddies, that would never make a move
I see it in the wants, that never  will.
You will find it, in the love, never expressed.
You will read it, in the expressions not told

I know where broken hearts go.
They go to prisons where fears and torture are royal.

NO ONE

No eyes, no dreams, no goals

No me, no us, no them

Sleeping dreamless

Wake up vision-less

Find a quality

Yet no name

The title of the day

Not face of tomorrow

Their say against mine

Your name hostile fame

The scream they hush

For identity not known

What is the title?

Why is he subtle?

Who do me rattle?

When i still grapple

Dog still nameless

Yet not blameless

While still faceless

Rend them speechless 

Only birds fly, not scattered feather

“Chaotic blur.
That is the best description i can give.
Detached from myself,
I watched the doctors
As they prodded and swabbed.
The nurses, they lingered and hugged.
The social workers, gave pamphlets and cards.
They said it will get easier.
They said i will get through it.
They said one day, it will be a distant memory.
They said i am strong.
But they didn't tell me,
I will beg in my dreams.
I will cry and plead.
Dreams so vivid you can almost taste the blood.
They didn't tell me i will feel him in me,
Years to come, in unwanted places.
They didn't tell me, i will jump at shadows.
I will see atrocities, everywhere i look.
They forgot to tell me,
The next time i am intimate with a man,
I will kick and scream.
I will panic and hyperventilate.
I will cry with my heart.
I will feel the pain in impossible places.
They forgot to tell me i will want the act,
But i will despise it with everything in me.
I will love with a ball of hate stuck in my gut
They all lied.
It never gets easier.
You never get over it.
It never fades away.
Strength feels like a burden.
Every memory feels like you are being torn in two.
From the outside in,
All over again.
Again and again. “


"There is a place in a place in a place;

Where kids are lucky to go to school.
Where majority just roam the streets.
Where kids are hawkers,
Victims to sexual predators.
There is a place in a place in a place;
Where girls are not as lucky about school.
Where rich old men literally buy them off.
Parents have 12 others depending on them,
One way or the other, they all have to get fed.
There is a place in a place in a place;
Where girls are married by 13,
Pregnant by 14,
Divorced by 15.
Life ruined, urine dribbling, and a child to her breast.
Where these same girls will be blamed for getting divorced.
These same girls will be left to fend for themselves.
These "children" now have children to raise.
Who are the leaders of tomorrow?
Half our population is made up of women,
The other half is raised by them.
The vicious cycle continues.
Can we wake up now?”

Dr. Sabeeha Hussain (SoulUnraveled) 

THE DARK SHIELDS MY SHAME

I don't feel the shame at nights, Since the dark pain, inflicted my damped soul,

Through his fingers trailing my thighs

Poking its way through the murky mess

Not from bleeding, but from heaviness

My heart can't hold, or shake off like the easy loss

of a stained white dress.

I don't recall it at all at day,

Since my voice, seem loss and frail

From the silent cry, screeched from fear,

 ladenned with threat, emboldened by death.

I died daily at his altar, where his cassock condemn my spirit to perpetual penance,

It's not the pulpit that accuses me of consent

The book didn't remember to judge me guilty.

It's his countenance that spurns my flesh to rile

With contempt for self, his sacred lips committed me to damnation

His lifted hands in righteous places, point me to my unholy sepulcher 

So, I live, yet dead to him, who feeds of my unholy temple to pleasure his anointed vessel every night in ungodly ways.

I learn to silent the demons by light, by wearing my solemn devotion,

With my nunnery garment, bidding my preachers will,

Waning my soulful dirge to mourn the memory, I choose to bury,

With each dawn, even as the ritual at dusk calls me early.

 When the sun rises, my shame fades.

When the moon walks, my will, my fear tames.

Again, tonight, shame died.

DO YOU REMEMBER?

Do You Sometimes pause to remember?

Does your heart think of me?

Does your heartbeat skip a beat?

Does it shiver and tremble at the memory of me?

Do you sometimes fall, pause and breathe just at the thought of me?

Does my memory cause your pulse to cease?

Your breath to freeze,

And your fears increase?

Do I make you wish yesterday never was,

Today always fun,

And tomorrow never come?

Do you remember me?

Does my name invoke you pain?

Blind with rage and make you tame?

Do I ever make you pale,

In spite of love you never gave?

Does my smile kiss you frail?

Break you in pieces and leave you plain?

Does my name speak of fame,

You abhor and crave and love to claim?

But couldn’t earn and so you hate,

Living a looser who breathes to blame.

Do I ever bring you memories of days,

Dawning in break, so lost in forgotten in lane?

Do you remember my hopeless hope

Of million pleas, wishing you were mine?

Dreaming you to turn to me, return my love

To make my night bright and fine, so much, with my might?

Praying, You want me then, to be your cross

Without a doubt, so long I was wrong?

Do you remember, my tears of loss

And walk of shame, for your love I war

So hard, that it was my curse?

Does your heart wish your faith was true and fair

For a love I give, in spite of you, or care from you

For many nights, so cold I was alone?

Do you remember?

TOMORROW

Tomorrow will be Benue 

where mothers cry
and babies grow
to behold the graves of fathers
that slept before they became
young men that did not father freedom.

Tomorrow is earth
that mourns her slain
that fears her faith
her fate and future.
Her festooned failure bloodied
by murderers.

Tomorrow is resurrection
of anger, of hatred, of seeds buried today
tomorrow is hateful and vengeful.
a dead seed is dangerous
tomorrow is dangerous
she will harvest these sorrows buried and forgotten in many folds.
but tomorrow comes with me,
I buried truth, peace and love. I will yield my increase.

Richard Abutu

There's a place

There’s a dark casting in my heart that leaves me lost

Each time I watch the last of your shadow fall, take a walk from me

It’s like you’ve been gone, but you remained to taunt me further

Reminding me that, you’re here, yet there.

There, that place I could never reach you, that far space where my thought travel

To visit you, hoping that you would recognize this shape you once knew

But, I could never reach you there.

There’s a dim light that dances in my eyes, when I see you show up

When the distance between us, isn’t measured by the last dreams

And the future wish, but, by the now acts, winning ovation from the pushers

You here, bringing a flicker of hope, with the almost, nearly and closely brush

From your presence, gifted me in your smile.

There’s a song in my mouth, I’m still learning to tune

From melodies, conjure through your heart beat, thumped from the rhythm only you make,

One clap here, a sound there, mixed from your goings and returns that leaves me lost for lyrics

To make the gyration last. Yet, when this dirge surfaces, you turn it into a loud cymbal

Tuned for you and I only, to dance and waltz, less I trip on this floor.

There’s a want, only you can meet, as much as I yearn to fill this void,

Left sunken from your exit, a hole left desolate, bereft of your touch, smell, smile or kiss.

And my daily dream has been, that I may know your breath again, learn the scent of you afresh

To pervade this depth lost and shrunk in endless want, yearning for you to see me.

Through the times, we’ve both shared, hoping the longing is mutual in our hearts.

There’s a place and time only you and I can live, only us can feel, only our hearts can tell.

LIFE

Trotted this beautiful plane

Like a damsel adorned in grace and petal of love

With a simmering sweetness on my face,

lighting up my world.

I've strutted and walked the pearly city of life,

making perfect silhouettes my body clad in life's rich satin

You see, this skin has felt velvety silk of the purest of Shea,

 buttered with the finest of oil, only the sun can outshine.

My eyes have sighted, beauty, hands luxury

and heart witnessed the deepest of kindness thereof.

But what I've never understood was curse,

 brought from walking alone not from lack of crowd,

 but from want of truth among the seekers of my time.

I must tell you, numbers don't make a meaning

when wind wades you through the waves of life's despair,

or forlorn faces nodding their shame of you.

You'll find they won't always matter,

 the ones chanting hurray will spurn in horror at once

 when coppers go crook, the honest keep hot

Life is fine and bright and could be dark and dim

when it turns to shadow from sparkling laughter

BURIED UNBURIED

 Death to the voice
 Kill the loud
 Hush the babel
 Less they gain power of their will


 They will against our will
 They take off our ability to dare
 Not even a dream is without transgression
 Our thoughts are met with avarice

 Shush them now, they say
 Stifle their power
 Silence their experience
 Less they snowball their might
 Our voices become yearning whispers

 We are not mere mortals
 A death to our voices is a birth to a million vent
 Our grave shall be the manure giving life to the seed
 That declare our will to win
 For each silence you make, a million voices you create

 We are the seed buried, yet alive
 The voices silenced, yet screaming loud
 We are the tomb, the foundation for all the resurrection you see.
 We are the unburied buried

 We rise for each death you kill

They will against our will
They take off our ability to dare
Not even a dream is without transgression
Our thoughts are met with avarice

Shush them now, they say
Stifle their power
Silence their experience
Less they snowball their might
Our voices become yearning whispers

But we are not mere mortals
A death to our voices is a birth to a million vent
Our grave shall be the manure giving life to the seed

that declare our will to win
For each silence you make, a million voices you create

We are the seed buried, yet alive
The voices silenced, yet screaming loud
We are the tomb, the foundation for all the resurrection you see.

We are the unburied buried

We rise for each death you kill

THUNDER

He calls me thunder.

That my roar sends panic to the mighty

When I strike, there is quake among the living

That my lighting causes tremble among the gods

That people shiver at the thought of my name.

He called me thunder

But I never struck twice

My flash never burnt the ones I love

It rather warms them like an ember

Soothing in the early morning harmattan.

He sails my storm easily

Yet he fears my wrath obviously

It could be the echo of my blast

That cause giants tumbling and stuttering

Signaling to him, he’s mere mortal where I growl

Maybe, it’s the fiery fire that sets their feet ablaze.

He insists my voice consumes the weak

Swallows the rustling of the impotent

My words don’t spit threat

It dares the monsters

It doesn’t appease tyrant, it torments their desperation

Bashing their might with brash bolt and brawn

Causing their heart to leap in fear

Making their strength fade in fright

But in my brashness

He says my roar is like a music to his ears

My rumble, peaceful lullaby to his heart

Yet, like a tornado I crushed his will to want another one

My lighting his delight has become

My riotous pace his pleasure

My turbulent noise his Eldorado

He calls me thunder and I howl in love

13

13 weren't the no of times my heart has fallen
13 is beyond the no of days we held on to us
13 is the date in the month, when a visitor is termed special
13 was the time when this visitor no longer counts
13, not the layers of mask concealing my pains
13, not the number of time, my heart panted for yours
having hours slow into seconds as I stayed crying,
as the loneliness became my unworthy companion.
It's the name of the period when
memory was a dark veil, rotten in my nailed shame
covering my pain, shielding my hurt.
Forgotten is the label of an era, riled up mentally
13 a moment begging for amnesia.

Emptiness fills me with so much despair
Making hollow this mighty heart fanfare
Swelling the pit of my pain with fear gripped so tight
Ecstatic, horror, crushed soul won't fight
Fallen giant, burnt spirit, lay in fear 
The gap left by unknown nightmare
Shaken voices not recognized despite
my wish and promises of dear.
Energy ebbing away from my broken hardware
Smile not taken in assured measure but fright
It's fast and slow, the push, my valour is loosing her air.

The anxiety knotting the valve of my heart.
This palpitation, beating, knocking constricting my breath.

Dear 13, dulling my mind, please mend my broken spirit,
Embalmed in shame, dying silently,
Lost, in this phase of a moment, exiled into pain.
Shattered in doubt, covered in fear, shoved in a state of emotional chaos
Shrouded in secret, Wallowing, burning, dread my might has lost.
They say time heals, I wish it doesn't exist.
They say time, makes all things alright
I prayed it warped me in time machine.
Where my past was more pleasant
I want the yesterday before 13th
I hope my day can get a pre-13th
Where the door stayed ajar, and love never left.
13 a date that left me in a daze