THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE…

Sometimes, it will shock you how satisfying the simplest things can be. I'll tell you something. Once, when I was in secondary school, in form four, I used to sit out on the field in the evenings to watch the sun set. Me and two friends of mine. One was called Jiles (short for Ighile) and the other one we nicknamed Bolo. And when it was night, we would watch the stars and tell stories, and wonder why it was so important to know the nineteenth element on the Periodic Table. What?

That was the time in my life I used to turn back to look at the mechanics working at the entrance to Ojuore GRA. Every time we drove by, I would turn to look at this particular mechanic with his ragged oil stained clothes, and I would envy him. Because he looked so – honest to God – happy. Now (that I'm grown up), of course, I agree with my mum. She said, 'You'll thank me later. But, no, you cannot drop out of school to become a mechanic.' Because life is not that simple, and nothing is exactly as it looks.

You know, I think it was a search for meaning. Because rap didn't make much sense to me either, and it didn't matter much that liking it was synonymous with being cool. You see, I wasn't cool. No, no, it's okay. You don't have to protest. I really wasn't cool. I didn't know labels or brands, makes of cars, or the release dates for the latest versions of Street Fighter.

So, on my first day at Uni, when every department seemed to require a passport picture, I walked out the school gates to a roadside photographer. The camera sat on a long tripod, and was covered with a black cloth, underneath which he disappeared to snap me. I tell you, in this life, I have never been uglier than in those sets of pictures. But I didn't care. I still used one of them on my i.d. And, one day, when that i.d fell out of my pocket accidentally, the guys standing around for a lecture had a good snigger. Honestly? I thought it was a bit rude, seeing as I hardly knew them and they hardly knew me. But there was this one guy who didn't laugh, just picked it up and gave it back to me. His name was Ja'afaru.

We're still best friends, and sat many evenings, legs dangling down the rough brick wall that fenced off the hostels, just talking. He was the one that asked me, 'Why don't you like rap?' And I said, 'I don't understand what they're saying.' So, he said, 'Either let me fly, or give me death. Let my soul rest, or take my breath. If I don't fly, I'll die anyway. I better move on 'cos I'll be gone any day.' Then he added, 'That's DMX.' I still sing it to myself, you see.

And so, the other day, when it was raining like someone had opened a trapdoor in heaven, I said to my people, 'Hold on, let me bring the car closer'. I did, backing the 406 right up to the corridor where they were all standing, with bags of shopping, before popping the boot open. But the really fun part was when we started going in one by one, squealing through the rain and into the car. First the two year old, then the four year old, then me, then her. You know how it is, don't you? When it's dark and rainy outside, but you have everyone you love in the car with you, plus each one's favorite chocolate?  So, we just sat there, engine running, watching the water streaking down the windows.

Honestly? To me, that's what a fairytale is. Because, in this life, there are too many things we do just so other people think we're happy or successful or intelligent or good-looking or whatever, like take science courses instead of arts, or a glass of beer when you know you should be drinking water. But being myself has brought me good things. You know what? I'm glad I didn't become a mechanic. That wasn't really the point.

Image taken from:

http://2020hinessight.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/the-best-things-in-life-are-free-lifes-good.jpg

REMORSE

Have you always had my breakfast

Ready at the crack of dawn

And watched me walk past

Eat…leave…with the briefest smile at our son?

Has that look always lingered in your eyes, of pain

As my footsteps died in the hallway

As I walked away from another argument, left you alone again

Just when your heart ached with things to say?

Have you always been this good with the children;

Filling the spaces I left with flowers

Masking the pain so you could be fun around them

Though you were alone in the night for many hours?

Have your eyes always brimmed with tears…?

Image taken from:

http://art.ngfiles.com/images/205/alagarse_remorse.jpg

Strategic Love: Simple Rules That Make Love Work by Dike Chukwumerije

CHOICES

I believe this: even if man had the capacity to live forever, he wouldn’t. For there is a way in which Life is not just the function of a beating heart; there is a way in which it is only the function of the will to live on. So, when I was asked that terrible question, ‘But how do you KNOW she’s THE ONE?’ I didn’t hesitate. I said, ‘I don’t.’ What I really meant to say was ‘there is no proof’, not in the swing of her hips, or the way the thought of her makes me stop in the middle of the street and laugh to myself; all dependable indicators, yes, but none that incontrovertible proof they were asking for, that this thing I was getting into was unbreakable.

It’s my greatest epiphany, you see. I used to wake up at night and wonder, ‘What if I wake up at night and it’s gone?’ Don’t lie to me.  If you’ve fallen in love before, you’ve fallen out of love before.  And I dreaded it, THAT moment, when the stone that had been hurtling upwards all this time begins to slow. Ah! How do you break the news to the other, that they are no longer ‘the one’? Do you search for lies when they ask, ‘But what did I do?’  Or tell the truth, ‘Nothing’? And what if you’ve had kids with them already, built this complicated life together already? Yes. What if it’s the morning of your fiftieth?

I used to have these thoughts… Then I said to myself – ‘Dike; feelings, like tides, will rise and fall but Love, surely, must be something more’. So, let’s ask a different set of ‘What ifs..?’ What if you took it all away; stripped it of every sonnet, every violin in the background, every gold-tinted sunset and gentle, meandering path? What if you ground it down to its irreducible minimum? Surely, there would be something left, something that held true regardless of who. Parent, friend, lover or your own child, something common to each instance you’ve ever said it, and meant it, ‘I love you.’ If Love lives at all, surely, it must be in that common denominator.

So let me hold on to what is real for a moment. You see, I have no fears of waking up one morning and ‘not loving’ my mother ‘any more’, or of discovering after many years that I don’t ‘actually’ love my daughter. And, yes, you could say, ‘Of course you wouldn’t, they’re your blood’, but in this same world there are those who creep into the beds of their own children. No. That bond you speak of is not in our genes. It’s in our heads. It’s in the things we’ve been raised to accept without question: you love your mother even if she’s a witch, you stand by your brothers, you take care of your father when his strength is gone, and if (God forbid) your child is born with six fingers and two toes, you kiss her gently still and say, ‘You are more beautiful than art, I swear.’

Yes. Regardless of how Walt Disney likes to end those fairytales of his, there are actually no ‘feelings’ that last forever. Don’t let anyone fool you. This is the nearest we will ever come to it, to make up our minds, independently of anything they are or will ever be, that come what may, no matter what, each time they look to us they WILL find succor. For at its core that is what it is, not a poem or a song or a colony of butterflies in the pit of your stomach, just a line you draw in the sand and refuse, thereafter, to step over. Love is a choice; more than a choice, Love is a faith. And I believe.

Image taken from:

http://www.bhmpics.com/walls/love_butterflies-wide.jpg

FRIENDS

Some friends are for an hour

It makes them no less true

For had I not survived that hour

There would have been no day

Some friends are for the day

This does not make them bad

For if I did not live that day

There would have been no week

Some friends are for the week

It does not mean they're fickle

For if that week had shot me down

There would have been no month

Some friends are for the month

Don't think of them as false

For if they had not played their part

There would have been no year

Some friends are for the year

They fade when it is done

But just because they stood with you

You have another year

And some are for the years

Undoubtedly, it's true

But looking back, I also see

All friends are for something

As long as you take time

To be a friend yourself

You'll always find you never lack

The friend you truly need

For when you sow a seed

Each time life demands it

You find a bountiful harvest

Each time you deserve it

So never curse or cry

When people come and go

Just touch the one in front of you

And someone will touch you.

This poem is from my collection:
'Malaika: A Poetry Collection for Children and Those Who Love Them'
Click on the link if you would like to purchase the whole collection

BEST MOMENTS

A performance poet needs to practice. So, sometimes, I escape to a quiet room in the house and start talking to myself. But, invariably, after a few minutes, the door creaks open and they stick their heads round it. ‘Daddy, are you doing your poetry?’ I nod, because I can’t stop in the middle of a recitation or, well, I would have to start all over again. ‘Can we listen?’ I nod again, and frown viciously too, so they know to shut up and stop disturbing me.

That day I was doing my tribute to Chinua Achebe. ‘Nna anyi’ I thundered. ‘Is it true that the calabash broke and I will no longer drink from it?’ They’ve heard it many, many times. But, still, they sit obediently and listen, while I leap around the room, stomping and shouting. Afterwards, I’m breathing a bit heavily. ‘Did you like it?’ My eldest eyes me, then slowly picks up her rubber duck. ‘Nna anyi’ she says laughing, ‘Is it true that I threw this rubber duckie at your head?’

That is what you call, a bad review.

A running commentary is when my number two cannot keep her mouth shut. ‘The Heartbeat of the Sparrow’ is a very solemn piece. So I take a deep breath and say, ‘If He can hear the heartbeat of a sparrow…’ and she chirps in, ‘Eh? What is sparrow?’ I ignore her; ‘… a droplet of water clinging on to the edge of a leaf, the shifting heart of the earth, the march of mountains, the movement of shadows, the scratching sound of a lizard scurrying across the sands.’ She tugs at my shorts, ‘Is it like the lizards in our house?’ I eye her. ‘If He can hear the tears sliding down my face, the hopes and fears rattling in my chest, the thoughts tiptoeing in my head, the rise and fall of every idea…’ She’s tugging at my shorts again, almost pulling them down, ‘Daddy, what is it? Why are you shouting?’

It’s what I tell them all the time. ‘What is it? Why are you people shouting? Please, keep your voices down.’ But they are not yet at the age where they can fully comprehend how someone would propose a rule with the intention that it apply only to others. So, the day she heard me say, ‘If a white man turns and calls me ‘nigger’…’, she echoed it happily, ‘Nigger! Nigger! Nigger!’ I stopped in horror, ‘No! No! You can’t say that!’ And she did her sad face, chin tucked in, shoulders lowered, eyes gazing downwards, ‘Why? Is it because only you can say it?’

Ah! How do I explain to this two-year old that I didn’t actually say it, that I said IF a white man said it to me, and that the poem is really a critique of the hypocrisy of those who condemn racism but practice tribalism? She’s still looking at me in complete devastation. So, I smile and say, ‘Who wants ice-cream?’ (I know; I’m a bad parent. But some things are just too difficult to explain.)

That was why I almost conked the elder one when I walked by, one day, and saw her standing over her sister, who was sprawled on the floor. And when I asked what game they were playing, she said, ‘Njide is dead.’ I think they learned the word from those weeks when Mandela’s face was constantly on our TV. She’s four. So, there’s no way she could have understood why my heart stopped, or why my face turned dark, or why I threatened them with congested-nose-clearing smacks, or why I knelt down afterwards, gathered the two of them in my arms and held them close for a long, long time before snapping, ‘Oya, go and play another game’.

I tell you, my brother, it’s hard to choose a best moment. But I have not known fear like I know it now; sometimes, I wake up in the night and go over just to make sure they are still breathing. Still, there are those evenings when we sit at the dining table and they say, one after the other, ‘Daddy, listen to me, let me do my poetry.’ And, at first, they are shy and twiddling fingers, but soon rattling out my own words with that confidence only children can have: ‘If you see a broken heart, mend it, mend it, it’s a start. Make the world a better place, with a sweet smile on your face.’ And, sometimes, they like to add: ‘Like this!’ Before showing me their biggest, widest smiles.

Honestly, cute or no cute, I don’t hesitate in smacking a deserving bottom once or twice. (Okay - three, may be four times.) But, ultimately, it is to the simplicity of good words that I commit my children. That these things whispered in their ears over and over again will not be forgotten on the day - we long gone and they long grown - they have to choose between what is right and what is only slightly wrong. It is an important day, that one, for on it I too will find out, award winning or not, if I had actually been any good as a Poet.

For World Poetry Day

Image taken from:

http://www.epacha.org/siteimages/UN%20POETRY%20DAY%202013%20poetry2.gif

THIS IS LOVE

To draw a sharp breath at the sight of one you’ve never seen before…

 

This is Love.

 

To long for her to look at you, to come round the table and sit with you, to talk to you and find your stories amusing; and when the night ends, to hold these words in your heart though you dare not say them out, ‘Don’t leave…’

 

This is Love.

 

To touch the phone, with beating heart, and wonder if you should call. Or not.

 

This is Love.

 

To call with bated breath, and find a conversation so deep it never ends, with a life of its own, that takes you through places strange and yet so familiar; to fall asleep involuntarily because, on a night like this, you want to stay awake forever…

 

This is Love.

 

To steal a first kiss on a frozen night, and laugh the drunken laughter of the smitten, to walk with hands entwined, afraid to let go; to see the world with new eyes and swoon at the scent of endless possibilities…

 

This is Love.

 

To accept. To be accepted.

Not for where you live or what you drive.

 

This is Love.

 

To share the same conviction; that life will not break this bond, rough seas will not weaken this resolve, and where it is tested – on afternoons of trembling walls when the practicalities of living together punches holes in all your fairy-tales – to hold steady, to stay strong, to reach for those immortal words of healing and reconciliation: ‘I’m sorry, baby…’

 

This is Love.

 

To watch your children born…

 

This is Love.

 

To feel the weight of Time, the way it covers everything with dust and dulls the cutting edge of passion; to feel this weight with sorrow; to wake up in the early hours of the morning and worry about it, to pause in the mid-afternoon rush and worry about it, to come home in the evening and worry, that the routine of washing and feeding babies is chipping away at what you have; to stay awake at night, with only the glow of the side-lamp, and talk about it, to argue about it, and cry about it, then hold hands and say about it: ‘No. No! We will not let this happen to us…’

 

This is Love.

 

To find yourselves every time you lose yourselves…

 

To catch it just before you say it

That thing you could never take back

And where it is said, inadvertently, to you

A second later, to forget it

 

This is Love.

 

Image taken from:

http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/15992-lovesxc-1360565537-290-640x480.jpg

 

ANDANTE, ANDANTE...

Ah! Touch me gently. Baby, take it slow. I agree there are places where my heart feels like stone. But - it will shock you - there are moments when butterfly wings could break my skin. So, let’s not be impatient with the process. For we all come with masks. Taking them off can be as delicate as waxing; peeling back layers of defense mechanisms carefully cultivated over years of mixing up with the wrong kind of people.

Honestly, there are those who cannot see beyond the swell of one’s breasts, the weight of one’s wallet, the size of one’s hips. And they come smelling like Chanel, talking like U.I. graduate with a masters from Imperial College, but there’s not enough polish in the world to compensate for lack of depth, want of character, lack of heart.

True. There’s no way to come through things like these without a dent or two. But no one wears their battle scars on their faces. So, when you un-dress me, don’t gasp out loud. You see, I wasn’t always this quiet. No. I wrote pages of poetry. Yes, if you had met me years ago, I would have shouted it out from the top of any roof: ‘I love you!’ But the girl I was with said it made her uncomfortable.

That’s the thing about a broken heart; even after you move on there are things that stay with you. So, you look in the mirror and clench your jaws: ‘I will never let anyone do this to me again.’ It’s the tragic irony of life, isn’t it? That the very same road that leads to dead-ends leads to true love; through the same gates of trust, down the same narrow paths of hope, gently putting those things that can only be totally safe if they stay inside you in the hands of someone else.

But – ah! - don’t get too cocky now; thinking you earned it all the first day we kissed, the key to every locked door. There are still things you don’t know about me, may never know about me. Listen – and don’t forget it – if the Past is as good a teacher as they say it is, then there’s a darkness lurking on the far side of everyone. All of a sudden, I’m not firm enough for you, funny enough for you, rich enough for you. Fear – the cold fear of rejection – is the only real obstacle to total intimacy. But do you know the future? Can you guarantee it, here and now, that even on the worst days, the sound of my voice will stay the darkness in you?

So, what’s the rush? Trust is like stacking empty bottles, one on top of the other; like performing open-heart surgery on a three-month-old baby; like reversing the effects of global warming; or getting a wild horse to eat out of your hands. You cannot give up at every failure, or the sun would have stopped trying, long ago, to tease the seed out of its skin.

No. Let me tell you what to do. You don’t really win hearts with love poetry and candle-lit dinners, you win them with Time – every morning I wake up and you’re still here, when we shout at each other at the top of our voices but you reach across at night and squeeze my hand still, these things speak more eloquently than Achebe. True. I don’t need a serenade tonight, baby. Just touch me gently. Just take it slow.

Image taken from:

http://render.fineartamerica.com/images/images-stretched-canvas-search/15.00/15.00/black/break/images-medium-5/love-is-gentle-sally-huss.jpg

This piece was first published in:
http://achalugowrites.wordpress.com/2014/02/15/andante-andante/