i sometimes dream of something different. a place i cannot truly describe. it feels like a back liberated from burden, where resentment doesn’t lace your words and the taste of me never sours in your mouth. somewhere where i’m not at odds with silence, or myself, where my loathing never left these marks on my neck. a place where i, and all the lives i have lived don’t struggle for air from the same set of lungs. where peace flows like a river and i don’t fear drowning. a place where all that i am, and all that i am not, are enough.
intermission
storms come and go. this one has passed. back to your regularly scheduled programming. i will not fall apart tonight. keep an open mind.
-SET
you were heaven sent, but so was pestilence.
pessimist.
let me penetrate those places in your mind
the corners where you reside
where all the dark secrets hide.
the devil’s tryna deafen me
heaven help
there isn’t anybody left
with me.
all alone.
at the centre of madness
i mix it with sadness
this intersection so tragic.
put my problems on my back
walking down to the river
i will not let them go
i stand below
the surface
it hurts
but
i’m wordless
or worthless
Pursuit of something perfect
Brings no purpose
Purposefully purse my lips
Put my pen on the paper,
Its nice to meet me again.
burdened
‘burdened’
written during a hard time. keep an open mind.
-SET
we’re just grains of damp sand stuck between the tide and the whims of a volatile child. time is our only lifeline and as those threads unravel this castle will crumble and to nothingness shall we return.
my spirit resides in those brief moments between night and morning when even the world is unsure of what it is, that indecisiveness reflected in my mindset from when I wake and warily make my way through the day, hoping that the bare minimum appeases whatever expectations have unknowingly been laid at my feet.
I want my smiles to hold meaning.
I want to want something. To crave. To feel. To not have my desires waylaid by unrelenting apathy. Even my demons laze around, lacking even the slightest strength to torment me.
Searching for happiness like a blind man searches for the sunrise.
Searching for someone resembling myself in between these lines.
the broken heart brigade II
Until we meet again, I will tell the world I’m fine. new members are still welcome. keep an open mind.
-SET
It feels like there is a forest between my shoulder blades. Thorny thickets clamping down on my spine while trees borne of my own insecurities reach heights that would bring about vertigo in the boldest of men. Is this what weakness feels like? I feel like a grounded Zeus without a single spark to dance between my fingers. I once was Icarus and you were the wax that held my wings together, and as I rose, you slipped away and I tumbled from the heavens. Now the waves are crashing over my head and I’m lost in the forest within, searching for remnants of you. The faintest hint of your scent, a glimpse of your flesh, anything. Anything.
I love her grip on my back as I ease myself into her, her legs wrapped around me, her eyes alight. I promised myself that I wouldn’t do it but my head touched the pavement, my heels faced God and I was in love. She just wanted sex and I just wanted her and that should have been my first sign to slow down but I sprinted, full speed ahead. Lies inside my lust, she’s lying in my bed, I’m lying in between her thighs, she’s got her hands upon my head. I let my tongue caress her clit, her legs shake a bit, she’s writhing and moaning, gasping for air. I’m grasping for something to hold on to, figuratively. I will give her my all, physically. I will sit her on my countertop, and fuck her until her legs feel like jelly and the only words she can utter are “fuck yes.” She will regain her strength, get dressed, and go home so she’s there to meet her husband when he’s back from work. I will sit in my living room with something boring on the tv and pretend like everything is all right. Like I’m not in love. Like every breath without her doesn’t hurt. I’m fine.
Pearlescent smiles to the public, hiding the broken individual that is trapped within the four walls of my mind. Faking my way through every day, hating myself for craving the venom that entrapped me in your presence. I’m afraid that if I cough too hard, the words I harbor in my chest will end up on my office desk and these people will see me for who I really am. I’m afraid that I will see myself for who I really am. I am weak, I am nothing, I lack the shame to see the problem in being so dependent on you. A blind woman with no guidance, I am traversing the edges of wet cliffs half hoping to fall, half hoping to make it to solid ground. Why am I built this way? Why am I merely a flower being drawn to your sunlight for nourishment of my very being? Now that the sun has set forever, who am I?
i failed you
i failed me
i fail to realize what i meant to you, if i meant anything at all
nothing breaking my fall
never saw the writing on wall, now i’m surrounded by these scriptures
angry cuz i woke up
lips been living inside liquor
pills been sliding down my throat
don’t know which will kill me quicker
but if it makes the pain cease
and puts my heart in one piece
i’ll close my eyes and say goodbye
and pray that you do find peace.
Our time is up. Until we meet again, I will tell the world I’m fine.
sweetest words
i wrote this after some of the stealing done by the previous Nigerian presidential administration had been brought to light. Like many Nigerians, i was disgusted and ashamed by their actions. This is my response of sorts…keep an open mind.
-SET
honey drips from your lips you have the sweetest words.
the bitter masses cling to the tasty morsels that you disperse, promising to take them from worse to better, every letter coated in sugar, you have the sweetest words.
you pose among the prophetic, comfortable making us diabetic with tales of riches and changes and prosperity, each promise sweeter than the last and we pray and hope that you will be better than the last, but the good times never seem to last but for now the bitter remnants linger in the past and we cling to your sweet words.
so you’ve reached your pinnacle, the god has taken his seat in the temple and his subjects wait for the fulfillment of the sweet words, the manna from heaven, the rivers of milk and honey but receive nothing.
so why did you lie? why did you promise us the sun and the moon when we can’t even keep the lights on in this room? no salary for my father, no work for my brother? no security for my sister, no opportunity for my mother?
my people are being slaughtered everyday and where are you? filling your pockets, homes across the world but the fields in your backyard are red with the blood of your people? your hands are are stained, your soul is black, your garments are crisp, your Benz freshly waxed.
the world is cold, or is that the air conditioner blowing upon you while we toil away, another day spent in this hell. we believed in you, trusted in you, and you smiled while you stuck knives in our backs and laughed at our foolishness.
I need to know why, i need to know why your conscience left you, so you could leave us. Why you value money over our lives, why you think that we don’t take notice, why you think God doesn’t hear our cries, why you think the devil doesn’t applaud your lies, who are you? sweet words caressing our ears, i thought it was honey dripping from your lips but it was venom and its in the veins of my nation if i could seek emancipation i would, i would run and not look back because snakes like you have choked out the good and the pure and bled us dry. and try as i might, who am i to fight, i am nobody, i am a candle in the sun, a voice in the wind, the son of my father, the son of my nation, with nothing to hold on to but sweet words from satan’s advocates, trapped in the cycle we will repeat and hope to break free and maybe one day we will eat the fruit of our hands and not be forced to watch as another man comes in to seduce and to deceive. I choose to believe, I choose to believe…
The Deep End
this is dedicated to all my lifeguards. thank you. keep an open mind.
-SET
“Volatile traces of your existence still remain lodged within my fingernails. I have showered and scrubbed and screamed and pleaded to God but you still dance around the edges of my psyche. Always a step too quick for me to grab you and plunge this knife deep into your throat and use your blood to finally absolve myself of you. I crave cleansing. I crave peace.”
The sun does not wake me up because I did not sleep. I did not sleep because I was up writing, searching for peace within ink and blank pages. My searches never leave me empty-handed because I always find pain and frustration in equal measure. I look up from my desk and she stands in the corner watching me. The sound of rain merges with the morning traffic from the streets below, dreary light coming in from my window. Her black robe is worn loosely, flesh begging to be grabbed yet I want no part of it, of her.
“Show me what you’ve written.”
A coy half-smile appears upon her face and I can feel anger and bile rising within me. She repeats herself slowly, almost hypnotically, but I remain silent as I walk into my bathroom. My eyes are past bloodshot, they’re nearly carmine and I look broken. I wash my face and look back into the mirror. She’s standing behind me, like a lion watching its prey. “Why are you here?” My voice is hoarse and shaky, as if my words will shatter and melt like shards of ice on the floor. She laughs, and it is melodious and completely out of place in my gloomy surroundings. “You know why I’m here”, she says with joyful malice. “You know.”
“I worry about you Nathan, I love you like my brother and if anything was to happen to you…just make sure you’re taking care of yourself. How’s the medicine working for you?” Amir looks at me from across the table, his forehead creased and his light brown eyes filled with worry. The remnants of our burgers and fries remain on the table between us while the weight of his question hangs over my head. “The medicine has been alright, the anxiety has stopped and I feel like I can breathe again but….” I look at my hands and twist then untwist my fingers wondering how to phrase my next sentence. I swallow the truth instead. “…its just hard sometimes. I’m afraid the attacks will resurface and I’d rather die than face them again.”
Have you ever drowned within the four walls of your bedroom? Your heart rate spiraling out of control, sweat breaking out on your forehead, air refusing to enter into your lungs? Two months of solid writer’s block, unreturned calls to my publisher, and isolation from the few people I call friends left me on the floor, in my bedroom, drowning. There were no bright lights, just the dinghy pale cream color of my ceiling. Drowning without the scent of the ocean to placate me as I moved on to the next life. That was the first attack.
I remember the day she appeared. I woke up slightly hungover, the result of a date with a bottle of cheap vodka, and she was there, staring at me. Common sense should have told me to run but I was completely fixated by her eyes. They were golden, and blazed when set against the rich brownness of her skin. “Who are you?” She gazed at me, into me, almost as if I could feel her probing around in my mind, picking through my vulnerabilities and insecurities like she was trying to find an outfit to wear. Silence continued to creep throughout the room then wordlessly, she turned around and slid off the bed. Completely naked, she sauntered towards my bathroom, her lithe form radiating sensuality. She looked back at me quizzically and said “aren’t you coming?” Off, the bed and into the rabbit hole, I followed her.
“Strip.” I don’t think I’d ever seen a woman as beautiful as her. My eyes drank in her figure, her subtle curves begging for my hands to explore them. A small part of my mind told me that something was wrong but I ignored my pleas for sanity and continued to focus on her. “What is your name?” My voice sounded foreign to my own ears yet it brought a smile to her face, a smile with something sinister intertwined in it. Leaning against my counter, she looked me up and down then said “For every piece of clothing you remove, you get to ask one question. I see a shirt, shorts, and underwear so you get three.” The morning’s surreal path continued to unfurl as I removed my shirt.
“What is your name?”
She took a step towards me. “Natasha”.
I slipped off my shorts.
“How did you get in here?”
She moved closer. “You let me in. You and you alone.”
I had no recollection of letting her in, or even meeting her. Just how much did I drink? The confusion must have been plastered across my face because she tried to stifle a soft laugh and she came even closer to me.
My briefs were the last to go as we stood infinitesimally close.
“Why are you here?”
She kissed me. Deeply, passionately, hungrily. The bathroom melted away and for a moment we were on a cloud, surrounded by bliss, fueled by lust. She pulled back slowly and reality reconstructed itself around us. “To bring you peace. Now take a shower and clean yourself up.” And with those words, she left the bathroom.
Anticipation built within me as I showered, but when I finished and left the bathroom, she was gone without a trace. Then it happened again. Drowning with no lifeguard in sight. A jackhammer in my chest. My vision going blurry as I stumbled to my medicine cabinet for the pills prescribed to me. I took two and slumped to the floor, waiting for the waves to stop crashing. Waiting for the shore to greet me.
“Tell me about her.”
Amir looks at me earnestly, filled with intrigue about this mystery woman. Rarely do I have women in my life as a result of my apprehensiveness towards social situations, so I understand his curiosity.
“I don’t really know how to describe her. She’s absolutely gorgeous, like a model or something. She has dark black curly hair and the most intoxicating golden eyes. Her name is Natasha and she just appeared in my bed one morning.”
“She just appeared? What do you mean?”
“I got drunk, slept, woke up, and she’s there, naked.”
Amir’s phone rings before he can reply.
“I gotta go, they need me back at the office right now but this discussion isn’t over.”
The walk home is silent, the slightly chilled night air nips at me while I think of new poems to write. Words bubble in my mind and it feels like there’s a chance of having a productive night. I start to mentally plan out my first poem when a voice calls out to me and takes my breath away.
“Hello Nathan.”
She had wordlessly materialised, seemingly from thin air. Clad in a black sweater, black jeans, and black flats, she appears to meld with the night yet radiate her own energy. Her eyes blaze as she looks at me, expressionless.
“Hello Natasha. How are you?”
She turns away and starts walking off. Nothing relating to this girl makes sense, but I take off after her in hopes of learning more.
“Where are you going?”
I fear that she will leave another question unreplied, my words falling flat at my feet, but to my surprise she calls over her shoulder and says “we’re going home.”
The walls of my bedroom stare at us, silently judging the scene at hand. Somehow, she has ended up in my room yet again and I know nothing about her. She is sitting on the bed with a scotch in hand, her legs crossed rather elegantly, while I lean upon the wall and look at her. A nagging thought begins to worm its way through my mind, tunnelling from the recesses and forming into a full-fledged question that sets the tip of my tongue on fire. To describe her as mercurial would be an understatement yet I could not forgive myself if I did not ask.
“What did you mean when you said you were here to bring me peace?”
A sip of scotch passes through her lips and she smiles at me. She raises her finger and beckons me to her. My feet move on their own and I am standing in front of her, like a child preparing to be scolded.
“On your knees, Nathan.”
Again, I acquiesce and get to my knees in front of her. She holds my head in her hands and gazes deeply into my eyes when suddenly the air is sucked from the room and everything turns black. I see my father’s grave with my mother on her knees in front of it, cursing the name of the driver that crashed into him. Her cries threatening to shred me into thousands of pieces, each wail a jagged knife slash through my heart. I see my thirteen year old self trying to get her to eat dinner, her pain becoming my own, causing my shoulders to stoop under the weight of our combined suffering. I am sixteen, my mother is a husk of herself, a razor blade skates across my wrist. She is lucid and I am a “disappointment to the memory of my father,” she says I make her sick before retreating into the dark corners of her mind. I want to die but I am afraid to take that final step. My mind is on fire as these suppressed memories come to light, internalised pain flooding my body like venom. I am twenty-four and I am crying and the trance is broken, Natasha looking down on me with hurt in her eyes.
“Peace is coming, you will find it, let it out.”
I continue to sob, feeling like I’ve been dipped in acid. Unaware of how much time has passed, I wake up to a dark empty room with a devilishly bad headache running riot in my skull. I groggily stumble out of bed to take painkillers. My phone tells me that it is 4:30 AM and I need to write.
“Volatile traces of your existence still remain lodged within my fingernails. I have showered and scrubbed and screamed and pleaded to God but you still dance around the edges of my psyche. Always a step too quick for me to grab you and plunge this knife deep into your throat and use your blood to finally absolve myself of you. I crave cleansing. I crave peace. My sanity continues to wither day by day, while you become more real. You are poisoned fruit and Eve while I am Adam blindly willing to go wherever you lead me.”
The days pass and all is not well. Ever since my episode with Natasha, sleep has become an elusive lover, teasing me with brief kisses but fucking me over by not fucking me. She pervades my thoughts and I can only wonder what type of peace she thought she was bringing me. Peace. Its almost comical. My mind is never at rest. I can feel anxiety slowly brewing beneath the surface but I have not had a full blown attack. I can’t seem to be able to bury the thoughts and feelings that I had plunged into the depths of my psyche so long ago. I want to scream and break things and weep but I do not.
The sun does not wake me up because I did not sleep. I did not sleep because I was up writing, searching for peace within ink and blank pages. My searches never leave me empty-handed because I always find pain and frustration in equal measure. I look up from my desk and she stands in the corner watching me. The sound of rain merges with the morning traffic from the streets below, dreary light coming in from my window. Her black robe is worn loosely, flesh begging to be grabbed yet I want no part of it, of her.
“Show me what you’ve written.”
A coy half-smile appears upon her face and I can feel anger and bile rising within me. She repeats herself slowly, almost hypnotically, but I remain silent as I walk into my bathroom. My eyes are past bloodshot, they’re nearly carmine and I look broken. I wash my face and look back into the mirror. She’s standing behind me, like a lion watching its prey. “Why are you here?” My voice is hoarse and shaky, as if my words will shatter and melt like shards of ice on the floor. She laughs, and it is melodious and completely out of place in my gloomy surroundings.
“You know why I’m here”, she says with joyful malice. “You know.”
“Is this your idea of peace?” I am yelling now and slowly but surely, falling apart. “Who the fuck are you? Why couldn’t you just leave me alone?”
I put my head between my knees out of sheer frustration and I can sense her moving around the bathroom, moving things around.
“Nathan, get up!”
I involuntarily snap to attention at her harsh call and see what she has placed upon my counter. My pills are laid out in three rows of six, with a razor blade next to them.
“I am here to bring you peace Nathan. You brought me here, you and you alone. You needed me because no could be there for you like I could.” Her words wrap around me like goose feathers and slide through my ears like honey. “Aren’t you tired of suffering like this? I know the demons that dance on your shoulders. I know the pain that you harbor within you. The anger and hatred and the insecurities. You are my favorite book. You are my gospel. I am here to save you and bring you the peace that you so dearly crave.”
Her hands wrap around my waist from behind me. “Look into the mirror”
I look and see her embracing me but her golden eyes are now pure black. I look behind me and there is no one there but she’s holding my reflection in the mirror, the face of pure evil staring at me. I start to stumble backwards, my equilibrium fading as I fall to the floor. I look up and she is standing over me.
“What do you want from me?” My scream does nothing but elicit a smile from her.
“Give me your life Nathan. Your poor, wretched, miserable life. Swallow the pills and drain the blood from your veins. This life is not for you. This suffering that fills your bones, the pain you harbor in your joints, the sorrow that seeps from your pores is not for you! I am here to bring you peace! You brought me here so that I can bring peace to this vile and pathetic charade you call a life!”
Her presence grows more malevolent with each passing second, her black eyes are boring into my chest and I can feel myself starting to slip underneath the surface again.
“I did not bring you here…I never asked for this.” My speech is slow and slurred while my heart is at a frantic pace. My eyes can’t focus on anything but her. She fills my vision, blocking out all light.
“You brought me here. You created me Nathan. I am here for you and you alone. The toll of this world was too much for your feeble mind so you brought me here. I am here to bring you the peace that you were too weak to take for yourself.”
Her hands encircle my throat, and I can almost see the air leaving my body. “I cr-created you?” I am gasping, praying for some form of respite, for a savior.
“I only exist within the confines of your mind. Now do as I say so I don’t have to tear us apart.”
I am awake. My body has been ravaged by my last attack and it takes all of my strength to pull myself up to my desk. For once, everything makes sense. I am seated at the eye of the storm, the last stitches of my sanity holding themselves together before it all unravels and I am plunged into the madness I have so dangerously flirted with. I do not know the time, the world outside my window provides no clues. I grab my pen and I write.
“Volatile traces of your existence still remain lodged within my fingernails. I have showered and scrubbed and screamed and pleaded to God but you still dance around the edges of my psyche. Always a step too quick for me to grab you and plunge this knife deep into your throat and use your blood to finally absolve myself of you. I crave cleansing. I crave peace. My sanity continues to wither day by day, while you become more real. You are poisoned fruit and Eve while I am Adam blindly willing to go wherever you lead me. This salvation is not one that I expected, but it is what I deserve. For this peace, there will be no penance. The angels will not sing, and heaven will not smile. I have nowhere to turn but to you, and if you are me, then truly, I am alone.”
I slowly walk to the bathroom. The pills and the razor are still precisely arranged. In the mirror, I see Natasha kissing me with an unholy fervor, her hands tearing at my flesh, while I succumb to her advances. I take the glass on the counter, fill it with water, pick up the first pill, and pursue peace at last.
FIN.
swimwithme
objective statement: i am a mess. keep an open mind.
-SET
i don’t matter to nobody. hardly a lie, their conversations pass me by. i reside inside the eye of the storm, far from the norm, please don’t get too close. i bottle everything inside when i explode, well no one knows. come and swim with a shark, i’m embracing the dark or maybe i’m shunned by the light, baby it hurts every night. the hole in my chest. cardiac arrested development stunted socially stuck i’m in a rut. i’m digging deeper. might need new shovels, avert your gaze i am no keeper. ask my brothers. i wonder what they’ll say when i’m long gone, harmonies and melodies intertwined in my swan song. you loved me, it was all wrong. or i was all wrong. these days nothing seems right. i refuse to juxtapose with what i have left.
marks on my wall, counting the days. marks on my wall, let me lead you astray.
bring me that innocence, that fragrant fruit, let me corrupt it.
rotten to my core but you love it (for the moment).
[come swim with the sharks baby]
bite your lip, let that blood drip in the water
you will learn to hate me too, let me lead you to the slaughter.
rough draft 18/10/2015
it only hurts at night. keep an open mind
-SET
[come swim with the sharks baby]
i want to walk to the other side, where the grass is supposedly greener but all the bridges are burnt so i sit with a fractured soul and injured soles in silent agony. someone will come again with fresh planks and ropes, hoping to lead me to this place but in due time gasoline and a volatile spark will work its special magic and again, i will be alone.
hope springs eternal they said.
me, just me.
this was difficult. non-fiction. keep an open mind.
-SET
i used to think it was selfless to love myself less. i wasn’t happy with who i was so i took on the problems of others, shared their burdens while storing mine inside. “you will be okay, let me help you.” but I couldn’t help myself, my tongue was a razor, ready to lash out at anyone before they could probe my insecurities. the mirror wasn’t my friend, it was the truth and the truth hurt. hidden pain masked. i was a false smile with a quick joke and a long night ahead. i was me, i am me this is me.
i am every tear i’ve held in, every unspoken word, every night staring at the ceiling
every glance in the mirror wondering if this is all i get
looking for love or validation or something indescribable
praying to God for peace of mind
wondering if i’ll ever feel again
fixated with tomorrow because some nights i didn’t want to see it
transferring pain into sullen stories because reality is too much
drowning on land, give me a shoulder to die on
i am growing, i am tired, i am stressed, i am content
i am young, i am black, i am angry
i am beautiful, i am vibrant, i am gifted
i am learning to love me. there are still echoes of the young boy that who deemed himself unfit for love from those who he never needed love from but his voice has faded. the young man that creates worlds with his words when the world is tearing him apart is learning to love himself. i’m coming to terms with the man i’m becoming. now when i say i’m okay, i’m not lying. those smiles are genuine. they might not be frequent but they’re as real as the blood in my veins, the words in my head, the vibes in my heart.
her (v2)
i still have hope. keep an open mind.
-SET
She tastes like cinnamon apples and peace of mind. Her laugh brings my heart rate down from stratospheric levels and momentary calm encases me. She’s a gift. Not the kind of gift that you haphazardly buy for your cousin’s wedding the night before, but the kind that you plan for months in advance so that you can appreciate the pure joy that explodes in your mother’s iris when you give it to her. I wasn’t lost before she came along, I was just fine. Just fine is fine until you find someone that turns the most mundane activity into a memory that makes stupid grins creep across my face during midday meetings at work.
If I had one eighth of her talent,maybe I’d be able to truly express how I feel about her. “I love you” is too simple but my pen lacks the magic that hers possesses. She turns ten words into a definitive statement on the human condition while I make a rudimentary grocery list.
“The words that cross my mind, when you cross the room…”
“A flower in bloom, you are the epitome of grace, perfection..”
eggs
bread
milk
strawberry orange jello
chocolate chip cookies
“I love you”.
I painted it in big blue letters across the bedroom wall. My failed letters graced the floor like seeds that would only reap more awful literature. Her eyes were teary and she made her away across the room, into my arms and told me that she loved me too. Her smile, those perfect white teeth offset by that dark brown skin, had my heart ready to explode.We made love and it was carefree and imperfect and we laughed a lot. Her lean body, wrapped around mine, the two of us moving as one, her cries pushing me further until we rolled over the edge, literally and figuratively. My shoulder is a little bruised but I’d fall a hundred times for moments like that.
Now she’s sleeping, and I’m sitting and the world is quiet and the room is dark. An angel is a few feet away from me but I’ve learned to compartmentalize my amazement and simply accept that I’ve never been more blessed. I used to be lonely and crave companionship, like a junkie craves a needle. Those late nights, wondering why women that wouldn’t notice me if I walked into their room on fire didn’t love me. I am no longer addicted to being made whole by someone else. I was just fine before her, if there ever is a time after her I will be just fine. In these late hours when the world is stuck between night and morning and God is sleepily fumbling for his alarm clock, I am no longer alone.
fvdedcollective 