A Curious Tale

#1

The very first post in this series is written by Adenike. Adenike is a writer who is “finding her voice.” She likes to write poems and occasionally, short stories. She writes to inspire and entertain. She blogs at denikhe.blogspot.com and can also be found at lucidlemons.com. You can also follow her on twitter @denikhe

In this powerful poem, Nike seeks to capture the abstract nature of the curious tale and country called Nigeria.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

This is a curious tale of love

Of blood that birthed tears

Tears that washed hands

Tears that deceived you into thinking your hands were clean and you were pure

You who is listening to this tale

Hear, hear

Even if you do not need to listen

For this tale is the song that resonates in your heart

An ever present melody

A curious tale

This is a curious tale of pain

Of ache that numbs but never goes away

Of sacrifice and selfishness

Of unwillingness

Of false starts and shattered hopes

Of merchandise sold across the seas to buy dreams of a prosperous future that still hasn’t arrived

Of power seizure that sucks the life out of you

Of your refusal to die even though you’re in pain

Of hope being the anaesthesia to the empty hollowness that you term pain

A curious tale

This is a curious tale of humour

The anecdotes that you weave to mirror your smile

The laughter that comes from deep within you, laughter that they never could kill

Of stark madness swathed in the cloaks of laughter and constant chants of “e go better”

Of a tomorrow that is assured even though it isn’t promised

A tomorrow that is streaked with tears, but also with a chance of laughter

A curious tale

This is a curious tale of art

Of faltering baby steps and things falling apart, predicting that there was a country

Of purple hibiscuses blooming

And half of a yellow sun, the other side dark and gloomy

Of Ibadan with its rusty roofs like broken china in the sun

Of mother Idoto calling you home, welcoming you into her bosom

Of the years of childhood and reminders of why you need to set forth at dawn

Of the lessons from deep within the Adire pits

Of sculptures and paintings

Of expression and nothingness

Of the silent war where the pen with a pointed end has always beaten the two edged sword

A curious tale

This is a curious tale of forgiveness and healing

Of forgetfulness

Of pardoning Baba Kamoru for wasting crisp naira notes on Silifa’s wiggling waist

Money meant for the education of your child. Our child

Of mercy and jabs of ‘it is one thing that would kill a man’

Of resignation and generosity

Of Swiss accounts and trips abroad

Of mountains of dollars that could feed generations

Of unfathomable sums that play the accompanying melody to the rumble and grumble of your empty stomach, occasionally interjected by the sound of you slapping your skin as you chase away monstrous mosquitoes.

A curious tale.

This is a curious tale of denial

of the dejection you felt when you were denied that visa, even worse than when your girlfriend Amaka left you for Emeka- the one with the car

Of curses disguised as blessings

Oil wells that seep into your water

Your cry for help interpreted as a cry for vengeance

Of amnesty not saving the militant in your soul

Of angry spirits screaming in anguish

killed because of imported faith, akin to dying over a tin of sardines

Of bombs that signal the end

And end that almost always begins immediately

Of endings that never begin and beginnings that never end

Of false starts and sprinters hearing imaginary gunshots

Only that, these shots are real

They just hit your mother.

Of throwing stones in the marketplace because your mother is used to the pain

One more hit would not hurt her, it can’t kill her

A curious tale

This is a curious tale of love

Of Negativity that breeds positivity

Of Ingenuity bathed in 419

Of Great minds numbed with Ganja

Of Escapes that were made into abysses

of Regret that is played over and over

Of Inception and inspiration

Of Agony that is not pain

This is a curious tale whose melody beats like a fervent drum in my soul and in yours

This is a tale woven every day, never ending

This is the story of home, are you familiar?

There is no place like her.

Thanks for reading.

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