JENNIE IFEATU

Decades after decades I have hushed whispers that change will come Will it be like shrewd currencies in hands of Lagos drivers? Will it be like a firefly illuminating the scary dark paths? So they whisper to me to undress This fitting frock I wear It is my only inheritance from the world that is my home What do you call a leopard without its spot? For every step I took I walked ten steps back Because I am a bird with wings perching from tree to tree I am water flowing into waterfalls and rock cracks Only the living find love and acceptance For phantoms bypass each other not identifying themselves So I die a thousand times With a ray of hope that when I resurrect I 'd find what I seek

I was told that time heals every wound But these sores are fresh through decades Of the thrust of spears of these filial attachments With which I shared umbilical cords With fangs and claws, they charge at me And I am nothing but defenceless The earth has refused me refuge I run to the mountains But they have refused me from climbing their backs Monster Mountains sapping the earth’s nutrients Sole Harvesters of my father’s good Till their bags be completely full I was told We are one family Peace and happiness is all I seek I have cast my life in a box It has to undergo balloting to ascertain it’s worth It is worth nothing; so it is cast to the dogs That sink their teeth in my health They thump around and make death traps on the road Then make plans for tomorrow in flowing gowns and matching caps Laughing at the wounds that will never heal Laughing at my face of death At another stage rehearsal of casting my life in a box

The sky has forgotten its scripted lines  It has lost its knowledge of crying  So it has remained dry  Caked like the dry red earth  Void of moisture  We are parallel lines  Legs stretched worlds apart  From your cup, I no longer drink  Your familiar cheeks I don’t kiss  A sharp dagger slug behind; just around my waistline  Who drew the battle lines? Who pulls out his own intestines? This is insanity  The heart has lost its form  It is a replica of my father’s rumpled trousers A shame to the eye  A sore to the soul  Why did this turn out so? A body in a rift with its soul  Its all I see when I stare  I am the body  You are the soul  I feel nothing anymore  I am bewildered! Is this the seed mortals sow?

Blood is the river that flows Stabs after stabs From filial swords Shots after shots From our supposed protector's guns Tears is the stream in which we drown Bellies empty While our fathers sing Humpty-dumpty sat on the wall The very ground that swallowed our umbilical cords despise us So we run From you, from them, from us To lands green seeking the gold rush We once had gold but it's now covered in rust Maybe we should head to the mountains To get closer to the clouds To yell in it's ears And ask; Whose ewe did we steal? Which god's sacrifice have we mortals eaten? That has rendered us countless times by vipers bitten That has made our lives less in value against cattle or perhaps beetles Whose sacrifice have we eaten?

I learnt the power in the word 'Feminine ' At the age of nine My lips have tasted weakness It has the taste of sour grapes Leaving even men like beings devoid of scrotal sacs If hell lived in humans It would pitch its tent in the navel of the soul Where battered souls whimper Yet it's sound effect is as calm as a body of water Your soul was a house with many windows Peering through them filled my intestines with masticated food My body failing me as I fell weightless like a metal pin I ate of the meal you did not feed me Lump after lump of sorrow and pain Hoping it will take away the rush of tears in your veins I stirred the inferno with my foot Not minding that I 'd see the scar For every scar A lesson learnt For every whimper I gained another strand of strength

Cursed be the beddings That soaked up their love To produce a vain thing From the whisper of sweet nothings To grunts and sobs Her smile is a concealer A replica of that of daughters of the eastern heartland Concealing the world and everything in it Her eyeshadow coloured black and blue; Is an imprint of pummelled punches From that love war at Waterloo Rouge cheeks betrayed by bad blood that vowed to stand in the dock So I say a prayer To open the eyes of her mind To the truth that beasts leave not their meals half-way Wearing white-toothed smiles while transversing dark paths I kneel and say a prayer That you will live to tell this tale Of kicks that became pats Punches weaved into your heart Bruises that will never dry How come you are yet to die?

I was I am I may never be But when it goes frosty Remember I was the one who tickled the sea The sea has no tranquility Just filled with nothing but blue And a depth that takes even the strong It took him A year later, it was her Now their touch I may never feel Tag me as the one who tickled the sea Possessing beauty not realised Hiding peace to feign being demonized But I know I walked through her Remember I tickled the sea So when the ships fail to sail When fishes find another niche When blue loses its allure Allow this sink in the eyes of your mind I was the iceberg that tickled the sea

Eko Atlantic What makes you tick? Though I may never substitute you for tea Awe grips my waist when your figure is all I see Why do the might plunge into you Is there any peace buried beneath the surface view Tell me Tell even me I count them as men eaten as sacrificed food Couldn't you have advised them for good? Men far away from wives Toil and freeze while the sea breeze their face wipes You are beautiful Were you told? Forgive for me, for I am careless and lost my manners Will you permit me to sketch your perfect body on global banners.

Some cup the world in their hands With ease it is done Gape, drool and marvel Yet it will drip like a dripping scoop of water The world is too much for us. Laughter that cracks the ribs Fear that has your laps trickling with pee Pressure that burrows you into the ground The world is too much for us Of beasts in human skin Of sanity overhauled by insanity Lapped up like milk drunk by a kitten A remnant of intermittent lucidity Perhaps the world is too much for us How is it that she travels circularly A drunken lady walking in a zig-zag manner Every stare at your amoebic form and supposing it as straight Reveals you as an unrepentant nonagon Have you heard about the man dressed in garments the colour of crimson? Who gives too much at advent season Only he gives out too much Why do you give your children too much to munch?

How do you describe what has no description? How does one define what has no definition?7 You will never know Even if you sit behind the walls of Egypt's Bibliotheca Alexandrina There is a want There is a longing But if the longing is never fed It kills you It kills yet the strongest of men Gnawing the intestines and flesh first Before it makes a feast off the soul Leaving behind nothing Not a tiny debris How do we tell you that we are like vampires Waiting for centuries in fear Not of longing But that we may peer into your familiar face And all we 'd see is a hollow of nothingness That our blood freezes at your sight Sniffing in nostalgic air Then our breathing sighs and curls up in the deep of our lungs This is the story Of men who went numb Nails and teeth dig into supposed skin But they plunge out bruised There is nothing left So goes the tale of men who went numb