Category: Poetry

After I claim 99% and reject 1,
I keep my head down
and focus on my labour

dream about fruition,
plan my future
break all inhibitions
pray when I wake up –
God is closer than ever

I stop deactivating good things
And start starving the bad,
contentment clears old desire.

in the back of my mind
I hear seeds burst
at the birth of roots,
soil opening at the rise of shoots

but then I take a chance and look up.

Looking Up is the problem;
I focused for so little time that
what I ran from wasn’t far behind

Looking Up is my problem.
for truly it’s not been long
since my seclusion
for incubated growth.

Reservations remain and I see just how long life is
Believe when I say there are enough minutes in a day
you feel that when you try to move up and away

Minimal effort ground to dust
the self-certified chalk
that I used to lock
my old self away.

Now, I feel the old way again,
boarding trains of thought
that I left in an old city
with old feelings and old memories

You bring them back.
That’s all I’ll say about that
yet you don’t have to do much

I’m the weak one,
hopeful, delusional and lonely
You seem self-sufficient
calm, content, satisfied

I’ve met you atop your staircase,
held you by the legs
You’ve sat on the banister
with my arms round your shoulders

Never minding,
you have never minded
but I wish you did.
As that would lock old selves away
with the steel bolts they deserve.

you’d rather cling to the dead
than bury them instead
and it’s because you like the company.

clearly anything will do for you
provided it takes up     space

but bodies that smell of completed cycles
have become one with your plain,
now you can’t tell the difference.

And some bodies are best left unexhumed
as their presence is worse than the first

remember they’ll vex more than when they rotted
and you’ll yearn for that pre-shovel pain.

Maybe some things shouldn’t be shared.

No one said you’re immortal.
Such beliefs grow from within,
clouding reason
to stretch you thin

to a point where in the rain,
October makes cocktails with your tears
‘Help me please
I can’t do it alone’

a mistake to believe so in the first place,
And such is your shame.

Good luck relying on self – sufficient sources
and gathering your frame when you fall.

For pride will sprout from perceived immortality
casting you down in vain,
appeasing walls.

Hypocrisy is a weed
inspiring fingers
to point at flaws
and cast stones at our form.

thanks to stress
we wrestle to reason
so dead and gone weeds
return with aggression

“Pay attention to how I feel.”

There’s a reason why I reappear
and you bloom on top of me,
tangling ourselves as hypocritical gardens
“You should understand my pain.”

And The Butterfly Effect,
the Bane of our existence
succeeds in making things harder,
thorns sharper and stalks stronger.

Angry tears water abandoned plants
growing in our gardens:
“I wish we understood each other,
and withheld the blame.”

We are creation after all.
Truly that patience is deep inside
below the root of those weeds

And if only we reached down,
spiteful plants would wither away.

I hope they care when I’m vulnerable
with my 100% heart
As it gave me strength,
remembering that I have you

I’m coming out of something bad
where I took the blame.
though I was half right doing so,
I found it wasn’t all me

It’s taken two weeks to find me again
where I wasn’t immune to truth,
which appeared in unfiltered glory
making me so weak

and I often birth a desire to grow
yet struggle to fulfil it

But I said so:

I’m roots before shoots
And here underground
I sense a finish line

So there’s no timer on this,
just patience and stillness.
And now that I’m being still,
I hear you through myself.

It’s true that it Must Be Nice
to want and receive
and try and succeed-

it Must Be Nice to be happy,
and to be content.
good to be in love
and for once afford life’s rent.

So strength to myself in cramped time frames,
restlessness and absent priority:

my incompletion
and unfulfilled potential.

and strength to my family above the equator
Children of oil, tears and palm wine.

Strength to God who neither sleeps nor slumbers
and knows he’s my base although my heart wanders,

Yes, it Must Be Nice.
but this beckons desire, not reality

Because life grants a vacuum
and nothing more,
“Must Be Nice” is my vanity
and God is my cure.

When heartbeats sway still bodies to sleep,

You follow the wind and fall down with the rain.

In a search for love, life gifts you pain-

Time has no choice in its passing.

So patience lies deep inside, I know it’s in you

Here I move to discordant rhythm.

As I’m pretty for a black girl
I pride in leaning on walls,
striding down strips,
defying given scripts,
a part of me, not all.

Three shades above don’t need physique
but what is seen first-hand,
While commending the way I speak
molasses no match with sand.

He doesn’t like dark gals,
Despite his palms’ flip side
He should know he’s in denial –

what does the avenue hear of me?

How much better should I be, more?
to show splendour in the dark,
An open letter from my heart I pour
“Pretty and, not pretty for?”
 
Chameleon street questioned
beauties like me,
Pure teachings from Def and Kweli
Not particularly light,
but I move so that’s alright
–
She’s American fine.
I, UK average,
Fenty 498
But I like what’s on my plate,
so I’ll make it plain:

Here lies no sob story
we know how it goes
I’m more than Nubia
it’s something that shows

I brought myself up right,
a scene of innate beauty
So I found that it’s my duty,
to waltz dark avenues, full flight.

For L.J

I live everywhere,
I’m not dead yet.
But when I am,
I won’t be held down

My essence will escape
and though my body will remain
all that matters
would have slipped away.

I’m glad.
It just means,
that I was born to move
and even after life,
I’ll have to go.

Come and pin me down,
I’ll smile when you try.