SABOTEURS WHO CROSSED

Come, let's take a solemn walk
Down the boulevards of purgatory
Men linger, half a century of pain
Those who crossed at no will of theirs

Enemy of the state, saboteur of the rebel
Straffed by dawn, pillaged at dusk
Wells that shone amongst stars
Lost, even in purgatory

I'M NOT CHEATING ON YOU

She told me about Chimamanda's book, Americanah that she was reading. The part where the lad traveled to school and left his girl in the care of his friend. We both laughed over skype, knowing fully well what transpired next, even though I had not read the book. In truth, she was talking to me, but I was too dumb to realize the logic. For she was already long gone in to the arms of another man. It was in March. It still froze. My judgment was beclouded with love - that ghost - to realize that the cold would send her into the bed of another. Lucky chap. Maybe a lonely Briton. Perhaps a lout.

Things were still rosy, even though I had raised eyebrows at the Facebook chat she had screengrabed and shared with me. The 'unknown' admirer. And then there was the birthday gift. Little did I know that the gifts were given in December, barely a few months after she had left for Wales. These two were tell-tale signs that Deola had left me. But I was still being stupid. We talked alot about the thickness of her winter jacket, the shop where she could get groceries from Nigeria, her coursework and the laptop I was saving up to get her. I hated for her to go to her friend's place first before we could skype. The privacy was non-existent.

I, Dimka Bernard was still love struck, and tied to the 'faithfulness' stake while she rode day and night by his side to school, then to the opera, the beach and even his bed. We argued over the email I had received from an anonymous person about spotting her and the Briton kissing on Bangor's streets. She chided me that it was a moment for my trust for her to be tested, "I am not cheating on you. People who know you online, see me interact with friends and course mates, and they freak out". I agreed. Though I was going through a rough patch, I was focused on her. She had just one year to spend in Wales and hopefully I will grow up to be that man who was right for her. I had swore, she'll be my last bus stop, so I invested every emotional resource I could muster. I was such a fool for love. A big one indeed.

I have now ended up in a pool of my own tears, with rage, anger, regrets, hate and grief as mates. For Deola riled me up to quarrel with her over my‪#‎WomanCrushWednesday‬ post on instagram of Bolanle Olukanni. Though Bolanle and I were good friends on snapchat, it was only on twitter that we grew our friendship. She was engaged to the father of her two year old son. I was secretly - which Deola hated with everything - in a relationship. And while in angst, she said she was walking away from what we shared.

Such silly jokes I thought. "How can you even break up with me on whatsapp? So I set about lending a car to drive to MMIA2 to pick her up in August when she was returning with her Masters. But she walked out of the "Arrivals" door, arm locked with a lad who had a moustache and an air about him that reeked of moral decline. She saw me and paused in shock. I gathered my now wobbly legs and dashed out into the milling crowd, half lost, half in rage as my chest to the left began to ache

A BROAD SMILE IN DECEIT

I can see what the darkness does
Say goodbye to who I was
For now, a heartless being roams
His heart eaten by a beast
A beast without a soul or girth
That one which went to and fro
With a broad smile in deceit
And said "he's a fool for love".

THROUGH MY EYES

All my eggs are cast in one
The other baskets have shells
Rotten eggs don't sink in a basin

My heart flows like clear water
The honesty now reeks as lies
Its burst cistern will tumble with rage

"Do as I say, I'll do as I will
Bottle up my rampage, it's not for sale
See the world only through my eyes."

My eyes have turned to shells
The yolk tumbles from rage
And I'm blind, for your eyes are shut

THE DUST IN THE DARKNESS

It has been 146 days since the Majlis sent word around about the coming of the darkness. The note had come in scribbled Arabic; passed around from one compound, to hamlet. The scribe seems hurried to jot his message. And then it came upon us. The dust in the darkness.

That is what we have come to call them, for that is how they come upon one village after another after another. They raise a mighty black flag and leave behind, raging fire, wanton destruction, the smells of death in the air, and silence in the hearts of those who live till dawn.

And that is what they have veiled my heart with – silence. For when Inna calls out, silence answers. When the government people come to fight with those camera totting people for verified numbers, though missing, silence answers.

I am Rifkatu, I’m 15 years old, and a Christian. Better put, an arniya, kafiruna as they have chosen to call us here – pagans, infidels. Maybe they are right, for in despairing silence of 146 days; of whispers in prayer, my God turned a deaf ear. Maybe not. He did answer Israel’s prayer in Masar. And Ayuba? Wasn’t he tried, and God commanded that his soul be spared? And Idris? Wasn’t he taken by God? The only man never to see death? Oh, yeah, and Iliya who was ferried by chariots in to heaven, after he escaped death

Well, Idris, my Sunday School teacher saw death. We all cried the day he was carried away, and then more wails when we finally found his headless body, decaying in the searing heat of the Malawa Mountains.

Maybe like Ayuba, this is my trial. Dragged all the way to that white pickup and loaded like a goat. I could never forget the color of that pickup. It shone in the cold night. The moon reflected off it and off the cold darkness that peered upon my soul in that turban. He had the height of my big brother, Habila. But he looked like he hadn’t eaten in a long while. He waived his gun at will, and sent fear down the spines of every girl couched in the pickup.

IBADAN

Ibadan
The rust-red lake
Rivers snake around its banks
Scrap, debris, produce all hauled
With the pains of men
Ibadan
Where the sage erupts
He runs every year
And Akala fished in aplomb here
Then drowned at velvet's shores
And belched
From the choke of his blood

THE OVERCAST

The overcast be reddened rooftops
Partial windbreaks
Walls of driedout generations of alga
The dominant color is abandoned gray
Years of colonization wins over every other
Blue, brown, white, even black
The heart of men be won over
That color of corruption be strong
The land, taken to ruins as such
Plenty be naught, fat now thin
Yet abandoned shelled out walls remains
And a few bloated pockets
Dotting the landscape that is Monrovia.

EDEGBO AGAIN

I have not seen your voice 

The canary of dawn's worship 

Crackling chuckles for the anger-lion's cow 

The slithering hiss from a stung heart 

My axe is raised, the heaven-lies stirred 

You will ride echo's cart 

The lull of my plea to bring you home 

My yearn, waiting to be doused

Some light after the tunnel

Early this month, I was in deep shit - knee deep in depression, and I was really looking forward to getting sme help somewhere, but as no one is yet to visit my blog, as seen from the zero number of comments posted, I guess I must give kudos t myself, for thge moral fibre exhibited, to really get myself out of depression.

However, it was not without some help from a bunch of five friends - all of them girls, who helkped me out if it, actually talking me out of it. Well, one thing to note is that one of the girls, the youngest in particular, was instrumental to my present state. Today, the opther four see her, as the doorkeeper to my heart. We have now become best of friends, and I must confess, something emmotional is springing from the ...

But I am deeply concerned about the many others who are out there, going down with depression. Others, with stress. Can't we give them an arena, a panorama where they can exhale?

LOW EBBS!

I don't know how many people get to experience a low ebb in life. That moment, when all the good things you have planned for with so much precision, just come crashing without any sort of sympathy. And then you just feel like ending your life. You don't want to believe you are set in depression, but you know you are no longer working the normal fast pace you were known with, and the passions that drive you just seem to die out.

However, the thing is that you know this very well, because you have ample knowledge of this time in Man's life, but you just can't do anything other than tell people about it. And the more you say, the more they just look at you and lack solutions for you. This indeed, have caused youngsters with great dreams and aspirations to take their own lives incessantly.

I think its high time, that advisors and councilors begin to do something about it, as it seems to creep into the adolescence society. As a matter of fact, am at my lowest ebb. It has become a moment for me, when I no longer want to finish school because I feel am being deprived of the actual grades I deserve, my passion for social works is now under scrutiny after I lost a major election not because I wasn't competent enough, but because some persons wanted somebody there, without considering competence and availability.

It is killing dreams and maiming development. GUYS, am at my lowest ebb, and am in need of help. I am beginning to feel suicidal.