I always thought my baby would fill the void until I had my baby and made him void

25.

Am I wired wrongly?
Does artery go away and my vein towards?
Kemi, I do not see my life past 25.
I see I turn 21 and I don’t know what happens
But when I turn twenty five the next day I wake up and everything is black
All I see is darkness
There is absolutely nohing afterwards
I can see you’re confused
Okay so I go to bed and when I open my eyes I see black everywhere!!
Here is no texture
Or grain
Just a constant consistency
And I completely dissolve into black
And that is the end.

//
You need to put it back, everything you stole
If you could place it quietly in the shadows perfectly like it never went
It is a lie
Don’t be ashamed
Exude the same confidence to steal
Put it back
We need to see you put it back
We must indulge in the way your eyes cannot meets hers
The ancestors must feel the weight when you put it back and the ground must shake
So loudly, ever so vigorously
(because they know now they can rest ; the gods have listened)
And it’s all back.
//

They want us as sweet and white as sugar but instead turn us into salt
Then they proclaim we misled them because how are you supposed to tell the difeerence between sugar and salt
You must taste it
One handful they gauge and gauge untl their molars rot and fall out  and they say eurgh! We should never have touched it
One handful instantly gets spat out leaving a their mouth salivating, hey you, they spit and spit yet they can not get it out and they say eugh! We should never have put that in us!
Good heavens we are tired!

You expect it to be for life
//
How many words on this page will we waste on that boy ?
How many more to forget?

It’s now or never but now would be nice
//
On January the 1st,
I stripped my self away
Climbed into the bath
 I cried and cried
And told myself
This is the last time I would every cry
Until 2 and a half years late when Jesus wept.

People continue to lie to me, life isnt too short
It is the longest painful fling i have ever had
And im tired of it
It’s  been a drag xxxx

Sharon, I don’t want to get married
Marriage is a social construct invented to trap women
It is very old fashioned
I grew up believing my parents had the perfect marriage and then they smashed this illusion
Too young to see the reality of marriage
The ugly truth
How do you stand in front of the God; who you hold above all and lie and spit at His feet
I think instead of being asked if I want to get married I should be asked what marriage means to me
Marriage means my father is going to hurt my mother
It means my father is going to havethree kids with two other women
And he’s going to take me on these adventures and darken my soul and begin the pressure wheel of my hate towards men
It means my mom is gong to be so inveted for all the things she  sacrificed and gave for marriage and ignnores her kids
Tha she becomes so bitter and plants little seeds of resentment in her children towards their father
It means my mother will spend her days reciting events of how the man she gave her life up for her betrayed her
It means my father and mother will invest in my father
And my father will threaten my mother
Marriage is when you forget to ask how ae you?
And you tell the supposed love of your life, you are tired of them and they need to change their ways
Marriage is your mother telling you , her children are the reason why she stayed and redirects her resentment to her kids rather than seeking refuge in the only blessing marriage allowed
Oh also because 
As a feminist my chest won’t let me

migrating

When I was 9 I jumped on the boat on my way here and on the way I sunk and drowned and never came back
And that is why 

Write something serious
Like how children of immigrants are educated now in a way where they can express the pain of their mothers and grandmothers.
Maybe you can write how we have been dying for centuries but now children of colour are not silenced by the man
Or you could write about how “the man” is a construct to reaffirm oppression
Perhaps you could write about how we listened to our fathers telling us the formula of getting an education, working twice as hard and still being a step behind
But how will it end?
How are women supposed to relate to you
You are a 19 year old child
But it’s the pain, the journey the healing
I may not be able to put it in perfectly coherent syntax but we know our oain can’t be perfectly coherent Sir.

Please, come in closer
Listen I have to tell you
(everything collides)
 *pull back*
No actually nevermind
Maybe next time

Nana, ma br3.
Ma br3,
Ma br3.
I convinced myself you are my one true love
But as luck would have it
Another rpressed memory free of charge floating on top of it all
Only a gift from me to me
And now I’m not so sure about our love.
Im back to the beginning
I don’t think I feel the capacity to love
Im just a preetnse
I know how to fake love
All illusion
So eaily mimicked, shouldn’t be a deception
I needa system of
Ill pray for you
How are you
Happy birthday
Of course you can have some
The offering
The sincerity
Bullshit
Im just so tired, Nana
But I thought it was real.

I need to go home
There’s no where but home will I find a cold bottle of muscatella to freely dance in my throat
One mouthful is enough to go home

The last poem I will wite will break me, I am sared I will be shattered to a point where I lie in my brokenness and I don’t know if I can pick up the piecec and put it together because it can not go “back together” like before then what would be the point.
I broke myself to be the same?
What if n the process of putting myself back together, Jacqueline, I break every piece some more
I just don tthink I have to time for this
I doont know if I should allocate time to do this
No, I know the last poem will break me.

You should care about how to pronounce your name
You need to ensure every phonetic is sang in praise
Don’t be complacent Adwoa
What is the need for a foreign flair?
Why are you romanticizing your name for the ones who don’t care
The ones who told Lolade their God can not accept her unless she comes correct
Correct with the name of Elizabeth, or Victoria oh so regal
God will be so impressed that the sins you bore will be washed away along with your truth. Folake you better listen!
You should care about the strength in Yaa Asantewaa
You need to ensure you carry your truth proudly on top of your head as Aunty Boakyewaa carries pure water to carry go market
Do you knot know about the Zagwe dynasty? Or how sister Feruz and her mates bked for Eriteria?
Respect yourself and do not waver
Do not go to the bucket in the shower and dilute, chop and blend the paste to rub on yourself
The paste will not heal the wound but cut the open so big Funke, that you ill not even know how to begin to heal
Then you will accept the remedy of Grace and burn the bucket because you know do not know how to bath with bucket.

Okay
Here we go
Maybe I could explain why
Why
Okay, maybe
So
It doesn’t matter
Where
Who I am with
What I am doing
I have to
I need to write 1 to a 100
Otherwise I will crumble
I will fall apart
And I will cry uncontrollably
I wont be able to breathe
I will feel like you are the most selfish being
I wont be able to understand why you insist on not sharing any of the oxygen
Why do you want me to die
If I don’t say it here I wont say nothing
So I need
Have to ?
Essentially I have to need to want
To be okay
Just to be stable
And my heart breks even more
A struggle to be stable is not normal
It just isn’t
In a bubble of just me
I need a table
I have to go underneath
I need a carpet
The one in he living room
With the grey and white sripes
I need to feel the cold of the wooden floor dig deep
The familiarity of placing thngs
The ocean is so big
I yearn for it
Yet makes it worse
Being overwhelmed is not helpful
But all I want
Is the capacity to be away
And away
To see nothing beyond
But to be certain of everything beyond
I want to need to know
Yes, the table
Now please
But there’ss none around
I don’t want to be a spectacle
Im scared
How many people will walk over me
How many people will crowd over me
Both soltions make it orse
No solution makes it bad
If only I could dig my nails
Deeper and deeper into my skin
It doesn’t even allow pain anymore
See you’re even over halfway
Numbers numbers
Who knew that would come to my salvation
I could never pick a favourite number regardless
26 along cannot save me
Nor can 1
I am so ired
I cant explain it
But I try to connect
To every part of me
From the s pattern
Solo edition attached to my scalp
To the tip of my toe nail
Don’t cry
Ii can see my insdides
I can feel my insides
I need to get out
I have to remain intact
Don’t scream
I tell Achebe, I am falling apart
We ask God to put me together
It’s the slowest and fastest
Simultaneous cohabitation
Just this time pleae
Can I explode into smithereens?
Okay
Now logic
And reason
Now I know it isnt finite
Sighhhhh
Okay
Okay
Here we go
I know
  
  
 
Don’t cry
Don’t force that smile
Be honest
A true smile because
We always make it to 100 baby.

I apologise for all the moments I failed you
I am truly sorry for everytime I delayed the healing process
I feel bad for the moments you were fighting to be free from the shakles of your bed to bleed out words which will free you quicker than anyone can let you go
I know I should have et you cry, let you feel, let you die a little just to come back to me
I imagined it would be more painful but
I was wrong
I deceived you to think it’s okay
I need to always do right by you
I should be more kind to myself

Trust me I really really really care about you but I guess you don’t believe me because I can’t even care for me

THEY HUDDLED GRACEFULLY AND PROCLAIMED
DON’T YOU KNOW YOU NEED TO LET HER THAW

//
"i got depression so i could take pills" = it is just pschology babygirl
//
write in the air baby, let it go
//

truly im gay
honestly im sad

this morning i stepped out into the north pole, i chipped away at the icicles
then meticulously i placed them into my heart, so perfect



a magical fit

Someone should have really told me this along time ago

No one tells you how scary it is when all of a sudden the one thing you are good at suddenly turns into the one thing that nearly destroys you 

Or how hard it is to look in the eyes of people you once knew and see a reflection of a time lapse of how you "grew apart" 

Perhaps it's the honesty of seeing someone turn into a whole other form....someone you barely know.....someone you barely like

I am really struggling and no one told me I would be in bed with 1001 ways of how my life is falling apart and have no one to call and say "Hi"

Well I could call him or her but no one will ask "B, how are you?" And truly mean it

I wish someone told me that people wouldn't anticipate until they heard "I'm good" to dismiss my start to ask for help before ....."so, do you remember about .....?"

No one truly cares 

It's either- someone wants to prove they are here for you. You know the ones that give you advice before even hearing everything you have to say

Beloved, sometimes I just want to cry and rant and cry and cry until I am empty 

It's either- you get the response "Saaaaaaaameeee, OMG me too" like Sis pls ...SOS

It's either - "you never open up to me, I feel like you don't tell me anything" bro can you allow me to process these emotions first and when I speak will you really listen?

Sometimes it's the little things I want to share.... but those get dismissed. Being tired and having a headache may be a gateway of me expressing myself 

Truly be there for people and listen. Perhaps that friend continuously complaining about a headache has been crying himself to sleep everyday for a week. "Why you always chatting about you headache man?" 

It's either or