2013: Mistreated, Misplaced, Misunderstood.
2017 Update: I am not mistreated or misplaced. Maybe a bit misunderstood but aren't we all? I'm just trying to write myself back to sanity on the days where my thoughts feel overwhelming.
2019 Update: God is good, life is beautiful and enjoyment is my middle name because the thing fit me die.
2025 Update: I’m a whole doctor of philosophy? All of my writing skills went into my thesis, sorry lol
Enjoy :)
My mother…
She never told me
That as a woman, when you love a man, you love deeply
Never spoke about the attachment you feel
Never explained the heartbreak that will fail to heal
The distraction, frustration
Series of irrelevant interrogation sessions
Moma never hinted the resounding word in your mouth, his name
Never mentioned the embarrassment and the shame
When the one that you love can afford to disrespect
Reduce your self-worth to almost nothing and then neglect
Mother never thought to mention weakness
The butterflies in your belly and the feeling of emptiness
Wanting to leave but feeling stuck..oh my goodness
She failed to explain the true meaning of contemptuousness
Mami never sang about stupidity
Or how after being ransacked of our feminine liquidity
We curl up and cry
Curse the day that you saw this man walking by
But at the end of the night, calmly lay beside and cuddle this new found demon
Slowly fuelling everything but his humility
Madre never talked about sexuality
How it’s complex even in its simplicity
She never defined the art of losing ‘it’
Or the hope that takes you on a journey to find ‘it’
The men that only want to be with you to have ‘it’
And those that stop to care after taking ‘it’
Nne’m never lectured about self control
In the heat of the moment, shut your mouth and go out for a stroll
Never taught me to master the will to be well composed
Or that there will always be situations left undisclosed
My beautiful mother never taught me about their kind
And now at 18, I struggle to understand
The difference between disaster and mankind
Love, hate, confusion and regret
The will to persevere and the fear of change
Ma mere never said that love was pain
Never begged me not to let my insecurities hinder me in vain
Because you alone will be left to wash your tears down the drain
She never mentioned that maybe..just maybe I might fall
Or breakdown when it seems like I can’t handle it all
Mummy really ought to have spoken to me
About the challenges that I would face being a woman in this day and age
But she did more than that
She showed me how to be strong
Indirectly but perfectly
On me, My mother never once did a bad job
The world needs more poetry, more stories
More people eager to break free from the captivity of illiteracy
More souls to recite rhymes
More wise ones to tell the tale of past times
She needs more writers
But what happens when every tale has been told
And the moral behind them, no longer left to unfold
When everything has been written about
In the past, present and future tense
The good the, bad, the ‘I’m having a hard time figuring this out’
The world needs more fiction
A new generation of geniuses to retell old stories with newfangled diction
So what then happens to our poets
What tales do they tell
What tales shall I tell?
Shall I tell a tale about Christianity
A way of life rather that a rule we follow blindly
The level of disbelieve
Doubts raised by the theories our scientists conceive
Not at all. It’ll only be another story about people being dragged to hell
Shall I tell a tale about love
The one thing that no other emotion is placed above
About the affection I yearn to ascertain
Or the people I happened to care for in vain
Not at all. It’ll only be another story about the girl who believed in fairytales
Shall I tell a tale about nature
The trees and how their wood is used for furniture
The manner in which the river flows
Furry mammals and how they learn to make their individual burrows
Not at all. It’ll only be another story about that homeless nature loving girl
Shall I tell a tale about depression
The one feeling that’s closer to me than any other relation
The burden that it brings when darkness clouds your mind
Those demons that dine with you when you’re too weak to cast and bind
Not at all. It’ll only be another story about that selfish, suicidal child who thought they had it worst than anyone else
Shall I tell a tale about hope
And peace and happiness and love
There’s still gratitude and inspiration and serenity
And every other emotion I’ve ever heard of
Not at all. It’ll only be another tale about a young child who was only known for his stupidity
Or shall I tell a tale about me
My downfalls and short comings, Hopes and dreams
About me and him and what I hoped that we could be
About every scar on my body,
Dent in my soul
Relationships I kept, ever so rocky
My hurt and how no one ever bothered to console
But I’m no different
And my observations lie far from distinct
Because somehow the minds of every poet happens to be linked
No new words
No new experiences
No new expressions
Even our titles are being recycled
So now I urge the audience to let me know
If the heavens need more stories
And the earth, more poetry
What exactly shall I write about?
You may not know me and my name is probably a combination of alphabets which you do not care to know but, I strongly believe in introductions so here you go. People on here call me A so, I guess you could refer to me as the first letter of the alphabet. I’ve just recently discovered Sam Smith and I like to blame him for this letter that you’re about to receive. So that’s two things you know about me..nice to meet you too.
It’s hard to put pen on paper and carve out my deepest thoughts while at the same time, trying to suppress my regret. It’s also hard to beg for something that doesn’t belong to me but, you’re a woman like me. Surely you must be able to relate on a certain level with me. Now that’s three things you know about me; I’m A. A woman. A lover of Sam Smith. Guess who else I’m in love with that you might know?
I hope you haven’t yet disregarded my letter due to my ongoing introduction because I’m about to tell a tale. The story of this woman that you only know three things about.
A few years back, I was young, naive, adventurous and I had a burning passion for love within me. That’s 7 things now, we’re really getting to know each other. My burning passion led me from one incompetent man to another. Each time, burning with a smaller flame with every disappointing end to all my associations. This went on for years and years. It left me feeling less than good enough, below average. ‘There’s nothing wrong with you, you are beautiful’ they said like it was a chorus they all practised to sing to me each time I got my heart broken. I was starting to wish I was ugly. Then I began to think that was the reason but what sort of world would deprive the less attractive from the simple things of life such as love? It didn’t make sense. Maybe I was created to be with a woman. Maybe I was created to be a reverend sister. Perhaps love wasn’t one of the basic pleasures I was meant to bask in during my lifetime.
At this point, I can’t assume you understand how I felt. I look at you and see something that I will never be. That thing that my past mistakes would have loved you for. So, I feel the need to explain further. It is awful, discouraging and miserable to put yourself out there and not get noticed by one single decent person with good intentions. To stand on a stage and not get one moment of glory. It’s like spending months planning an event, weeks bringing your ideas to live, days sending out invites, hours cooking sufficient amounts of food only to have no one show up. I was battling with depression and a really low flame. I became someone else. Someone even more unattractive than the person I was before.
Still with me? I hope so. A while after I gave up on myself and while at my lowest point ever, I met someone.
“I don’t have much to give, but I don’t care for gold What use is money, when you need someone to hold?”
He wasn’t my boyfriend but I wouldn’t particularly call him a friend either. Our relationship, although unexplainable and undefinable, made perfect sense to me. It reminded me of the sea and surrounding cliffs. It was the way they mostly only had contact in two extreme situations. Either the waters were constantly clashing against the cliffs or they were being drawn far away from it. Despite the wicked lashes being enforced of the cliff, it still stayed close to the sea and no matter how far away the tides carried the ocean, the waters always found itself back to said cliff. Most people would call it a love-hate relationship but, I don’t believe in hate; just different shades of love.
Our relationship was imperfectly perfect but unacceptable due to reasons I cannot voice out. It was like I was being revived. I went from depressed to overwhelmed in a flash. I lost count of the months, weeks, days and hours that we spent together. It was all an adventure; one which fuelled my almost burned out flame. He didn’t just call me beautiful, he made me believe it for once. With each encounter, each conversation. Each runaway adventure and each unexpected emotional breakdown, I fell a little deeper, a little bit more attached. This wasn’t my intention, wasn’t my plan and it couldn’t occur, not in this manner. So I began to pull away. I always thought I’ll return to my initial standing point regardless of how often I pulled away but this was wrong. Even segments of a cliff get eroded away by the unstable contact between it and the sea. Gradually over time, the distance between them will continue to increase just like the distance between us did eventually. It was always easier to blame it on our circumstance.
“Can’t keep this beating heart at bay”
Imperfectly perfect; Perfectly imperfect. With tears in my eyes and a bunch of jumbled up words in my head, I can’t find the right words to describe this man of mine or how he made me feel. I wish I could.
“You’ll never know the endless nights, the rhyming of the rain Or how it feels to fall behind and watch you call his name”
As you might have feared, this cliff of mine happens to be close to you. A lot closer that I had hoped. You would think five years is enough time to move on but time is just an imaginary means which humans try to define moments with. What am I trying to say? Five years is just the moment between my happiest point and now. Five years is all the time I’m willing to spend loving someone from afar. With your wedding coming up, I couldn’t possibly show up at the back of the church with the same false ‘I’m fine with this’ smile I’ve had plastered on my face all these years. I couldn’t watch a priest bless your union because we still had a connection. It’s a bit impromptu and a lot to ask from an excited bride to be but, I’d love to reclaim the thing you borrowed from me years ago; the person you now refer to as your lover. I fear that’s the only way I’d ever retrace my direction in life or rediscover that beautiful person he once made me believe I was.
“Set my midnight sorrow free”
However if you’d much rather keep him to yourself, I’ll respect your decision to hold on to an amazing blessing. I was so used to being treated like a woman bought into slavery, I was unaware of how to accept being treated like a queen. I completely understand the confusion that I may have caused. I also understand that sometimes, I “will stumble upon someone who will start a fire in me that cannot die” but more often than none, I wouldn’t get the opportunity to spend the rest of my life with them. Please do take perfect care of my ‘burning fire’
For a long time I’ve carried hate in my heart. Hate for one of the closest people to me. You all must be thinking “wow hate? But you’re such a loving and forgiving soul”. Oh stop it guys, you really do flatter me ever so often. Anyway, I would stop myself from listening to music because I didn’t want it to remind me of anyone or any past experiences in the future. I thought ‘it’ was temporary hence, no memories. No remorse. Nothing.
This evil that I harbored within me was heavy. I was fond of remembering things and getting angry about it over and over again. Sometimes even in chronological order because my memory is just that good. It felt energy consuming and often, pointless but I had to hold on to my hate. I had to keep recollecting because if I didn’t…if I didn’t have anything negative to hold on to, I just might let myself feel happy and happiness is temporary right?. Happiness is always the interval between one depressing moment and another. The vacation you get between reoccurring sadness. I couldn’t let it go. It was too much. There was always this miserable day and that heartbreaking day. I would remember this moment and that moment. It was at this place and also that other place. You said these hurtful words and a few of those callous words. I couldn’t forget. Because if I forget. If I decided maybe to forget, I couldn’t use it in my defense again. If I forgot I might forgive and forgiveness too was temporary. The thing you do right before you realize the past still stirs up the same negative emotion. I would have to shut my mouth about the things that hurt me the most. My voice would not be heard and neither would the sound of my cries. I couldn’t forgive but, forgiveness was key and I needed to unbolt certain locks so I could be set free.
I couldn’t forgive just as much as I couldn’t pass my igcse’s or leave my country at 14 for college. I couldn’t forgive as much as I couldn’t move on from my “was I blind’s” and my “I should have known better’s”. I couldn’t forgive as much as I couldn’t get into university or allow myself to feel emotions. I couldn’t forgive as much as I couldn’t breathe but each second I doubted my next breath, my chest will rise once more and my lungs will fill with air. I could do whatever I wanted to because Philippians 4:13 said to me, even though you think it’s impossible baby girl, you can forgive.
On my road to redemption, I would sit through hours and hours of videos on YouTube about forgiveness. People would say they forgave someone who slapped me and I’ll scream ‘my situation was worse’ in my head; each time giving myself reason to continually accommodate the hate within me. After screaming back at my laptop, I would shamefully curl up in a ball and cry to my Maker for help. Only the grace of God can touch your heart, enlighten you and encourage one to want to forgive. I have come to realize that now.
Do I still do it? Do I still remember and feel negativity? Pretty much but, not really. If past memories come to my mind, I feel sad for a bit, shake my head and move on. I can’t stop my mind from drifting. Can’t stop things from reminding me of the evil I’ve gone through. However, I can always and forever change my reaction.
In time, you realize that emotions change people; both good and bad. “It’s either love or hate” they say. In reality however, there is no black or white…no either or. There’s just grey and we get to decide what shade of grey makes us happy. I’ve chosen to have more love in my mixture than hate in my mixture and I honestly don’t remember the last time I was this happy. It’s a beautiful thing when you let yourself love because yes, you feel like you’ve found your forever and a day beyond. At the same time, it teaches you a lot of life lessons; patience, empathy, acceptance, selflessness, endurance…too many to mention really but it also teaches about forgiveness. It only took forgiveness to convert my worst enemy to my bestfriend and I’m overjoyed.
The song above is just…I don’t have words for it. If however, I was blessed with a beautiful voice and the gift of song/lyrics writing, I would most likely put down those exact words and sing them like my life depended on it. Usually, a lot of the songs I fall in love with are songs that have one or two lines in them which reminds me of me or, someone else or, me and someone else. Y’know. Now it’s not just one or two lines it’s literally the whole song and I could just cry now. My best part as usual is the chorus especially ‘I’ve tried to numb the pain’.
Those that read my blog constantly probably already know who Akunna is. Writing brought us together and we have grown to be close friends who talk about almost anything. She is an outstanding writer and she is someone I love, respect and admire
WHO AM I?
Finding me
I’ve been on a quest to figure out who I am for quite some time now. Y’know, am I…
Emotional, not emotional?
Rude, compassionate?
Happy, sad?
Secretive, public?
Easy to read, evasive and difficult to figure out?
My journey wasn’t at all bad however the way that I came about it wasn’t particularly what I’ll recommend others to do. I have done all sorts of stupid things really. From spending over £200 at once on mac products (even though I knew nothing about makeup at the time) to diving deep into a relationship which I sort of lost myself in. Now, 200…
Today is the day and I must admit I am a little nervous but I am going to brave it out. To kick things off, it makes sense that I start with my own story so here it goes. For the next couple of days, a different story will be uploaded everyday at 8.30am (BST). Thank you
WHO AM I?
Up until a few months ago, I thought I knew the answer to this question. Actually, I knew I didn’t know but I wanted to believe that I knew. So, in order to do this, I went about my business everyday wearing a mask. This mask was on from the moment I woke up in the morning till I went to bed at night. I never took this mask off and so with time, I actually started to believe that this mask I was wearing depicted the real me.
Woahhhh there horsey! This was supposed to be a 30 day challenge but somehow, I’m still on day 7 although I started this in January 2013. Am I lazy or what?
Today’s about what I think my zodiac sign says about me. I actually have a picture to show you. It’s such a random thing to see lying around but both my parents are Sagittarius so, I’ll assume they got this to represent them both in some weird way. See the thing is, everything on here is more or less a compliment and I don’t understand how only positive things could be said about a large group of individuals born in a certain time period. A lot of the words could describe me and plenty other people who may be Cancer or Scorpio or anything that isn’t Sagittarius. I just don’t believe in astrology so, not a lot can be said about this.
On a positive note, we could all sit and admire this old vintagey beat up piece of decoration. It’s hard to come by these now.
“And if you ever tripped
I hope that I may be present
To subdue your fall
I hope that you land in my arms
And in them, find your haven
That my lips may be there
To cushion yours
But most importantly, I hope
that I may be that lucky person
Who gets you right back on your feet
Of that, I am certain”
There I was, moving in a different direction
Our bearings completely independent of each other
He’s calling out to me but I cannot hear
Cannot allow myself to look back
Because behind me, a storm awaited
A way to familiar disaster
Reoccurring and indestructible
And no matter how many times I tried
No matter how much energy I channeled
The storm kept getting worse
Like my tears encouraged the rising waters
And my willpower contributed to the force that it carried
So now I’m sailing away
In an unknown direction
An unimaginable distance
He calls out to me once more
But I cannot look back
Cannot allow myself to feel the nostalgia boiling up
Cannot taste his lips and inhale his essence
I cannot be the same girl
So onwards I continue to move
Away from my situation and into the blue
I allow myself one last thought of him
Something to entertain my journey towards the unpredictable
So we’re sailing
No need for formalities, no point delaying
Due to the wind, involuntarily swaying
Slowly but surely drifting…apart
Akunna Ezekwem 