#13cupsoftea

We are palmwine drinking, hardworking farmers

We are traders of leaves and grounduts

We are a bikem eating, new yam celebrating people

A people with the spine of the palm tree

Ever perennially producing so many products

Who are we?

We are a pounded yam and akpu eating people

Who swallow balls smoothed by ùwhé kiruru, ùwhé átá or ùwhé kúté

Seasoned with the ancient flavour of kìwàwà íbò

Who are we?

We are hard toned men with callused hands

We are pretty women with nature as coy as goddesses of old

Who are we?

We are the hills that surround us

Everlasting, as Zedicus Piro self acclaims

We are the earth in ascendancy towards the sky

We are Kugbudu!

Who we are, may we never forget

May each offspring

A pebble that grows into a mighty rock

Add hieght and strength to kîkwēl-kúgbúdù

We are Bebua-Agba

We are Kugbudu!!!

i don’t know.

i’ve been following a string down the worn corridors of this maze, waiting for light, waiting for it to end. i am lost in myself. my footprints on the dusty, cracked floor are the only sign i have been here.

i have been following, following, following-- for years.

the string does not end; the string does not break. it is faithful.

frayed and in threads at some parts of the labyrinth, but faithful nontheless.

at some point the fire behind me dims, and i am walking through darkness. i hold tight to the string, but brush the sandstone wall with my fingertips.

i wish to go back.

i do not wish to go to the place i am coming from, but i wish to go back so i can make a left turn where i went right; go down where i went up; move forward where i stayed.

i wish to change my course; i wish to change my path.

perhaps, i would have made it out of the labyrinth, before it, too, consumed my last words.

Used tea bags and

dirty dishes

A home broken down,

disheveled

Constant fighting and locked doors

Frustration,

pain

the daily grievance

Narcissistic values and

pessimistic outcomes

Decisions unavailable,

voices no longer valued

A loved home

torn in two

Now a battleground

Broken dreams and glasses

lay fallen

in no-mans land

where no one dares to tread

Always fear

scent it in the air

Underappreciated respiratory systems

helping pump

the bad stuff out

Adaption,

survival

A broken home

triggered by

an unconscious lack of

love

-smolsiamese

out of my mouth

and put them in my mind’s

hands

watching as it’s cuts

words from

paper pages

and gets it fingers 

sticky with glue

pasting poems on

it’s dream board

among the quotes

and the authors

the “if found” posters 

of old friends

the concert ticket stubs

and the scribbled thoughts

setting down the scissors 

wiping down the hands

before closing the glass back over the bulletin board with the lock

covering the display case of

the master plan depicting

-my dreams 

I've been lonely all along

And yet I never had a longing to belong

Although now it's a little different

Because now, I feel the need to be affiliated

I'm fine with this world, but my heart aches to be in a new one

One absent of everyone but you

It took a few words to shoot my mind from a sling,

Set my heart in motion and enlighten my everything

I feel life in your atmosphere

Relentless of the earthly pressures, there's serenity when you're here

You draw my boat to the shore when these storms arise

Nothing is perfect, but for me you're close

I would shun the world to be what lives beneath your sight

Goddess of an unknown universe

They said talk about rivers and oceans

But I know not of these things

The water bodies I knew were my eyes

And rivers, these streams of tears

I was nurtured to feel like a desert

Dry of emotions

Empty and continuously of lone

Scorching those who dwell around me

My skies are forever grey

And even on my sunny days

I bask under the blue shade of gloom

The sky remains my prison of limit

Beyond the night is where my stars shine

Like dying flickers of a cold flame

Cosmic explosions of joy often occur within me