Day 30: Ayaya!

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Inspired by Christy-Essien, the late Nigeria’s Lady of Songs.

Ayaya means “beautiful” in Ibibio, one of Nigeria’s several dialects.

Give me a chance is all I ask

And as time turns a page, you’ll witness my person enhanced.

Just one solitary chance is all,

And I’ll deliver, my life will be a ball.

I’ll take my chances, go it alone. Just don’t play that card.

You see, it’s my call; so step back and I’ll perfect my act.

Ayaya, my life ayaya (my life is beautiful).

I ain’t need no more drama;

I’m sick and tired of sticking with the program.

Give me a chance and watch me go.

I’ve been in the wait so long I’ll explode

If I delay one moment further.

I’ll take it anyhow I get it though, it weighs down on my shoulder.

I ripped off the veil of stigma and prevailed against the throe.

I am ready; give me a chance and let me grow.

Ayaya, my life ayaya.

I ain’t need no more drama;

I’m sick and tired of sticking with the program.

Akpan

Day 29: Soulforce

Photo: bhs.rcs.k12.tn.us

When you hit that personal terminal

All your wishes and hopes rush at you like wild animals.

You can even reach out and touch your dream.

Cause yeah, it becomes literally and practically animated.

There is a captivating fact about reaching destination;

It's a definition of the individual void of inessential interruption.

It’s the turning point of an entire life, the power of a billion suns

At your fingertips; the climax of fulfillment on the fringes of your mind.

Cause you have thru fear and trembling, gained a customized paradise.

As you wade in the water, the sensation gets you high,

You observe meaning in the dark side of the moon.

You have arrived and rivers of tranquility cuddle and pamper you.

Everybody falls for something at some point in the race of life.

It might dock you on a peaceful shore or haul in the storms of strife.

Still nobody dares deny the evidence of that special something; inspired

Just about the size of a morsel of desire,

That ignites your passion and overrides your senses like a consuming fire

Giving verve to your dreams and on rare occasions, exhibiting

A knack for running along and rendering you disarmed and incomplete.

I have stumbled on the verge of discovery

The surprising thing is I was slighted by the cause of searching.

What is it I search for?

That my soul will not exist but fall for?

If I am to nail it at every turn of the road, I cannot tell for sure.

But I must continue searching though it brings me to my knees.

Because it burns within my heart like hot embers, impossible to resist.

Once again, I’m headed down the long and winding itinerary,

The place where desire is born, not knowing exactly what I might find,

Yet determined to never give it up until I bind.

Because the tragedy is not to die but to be wasted.

No other ill could more effectively root on a crippled life.

I have pasted my ears to eternity and I wear my heart like a bracelet.

Akpan

Day 28: Somebodyness

Photo: citypress.co.za

I am at a point in my life where something needs to click for me.

I reckon since I’m stuck in this game, it’s time I define who I be.

Haste is not the point at the moment; I am in no hurry.

Though, time has become quite the care; I’m trapped in its workings

Like a sparrow in a cage.

I must take faith’s leap; I’ve arrived at the decisive stage,

Or sink into a calamitous river of ruin.

But first, I gatto learn to brave the ever-shifting wind of doctrine

Before they retrieve my bones six feet from under the Sahara’s dune.

This level marks a new beginning for the individual within;

I gatto find the one thing that will work but just for me.

Then, gladly plunge my soul into it.

If tomorrow takes forever in coming,

I’ll throw off the past, strap on my gear, and get the present going.

I would rather not entertain static and introduce the agony of rut into my years.

I hear the summons of purpose come thru crystal clear

I’m achieving everything I’m called to be, I feel I’m almost there.

Deeply in earnest, I am persuaded to declare:

I will allow no silly thing alter the chosen course of my rising

Until my destiny is complete.

I pursue a cause to get my life on point.

I cling to my karma like one would grasp at a principle.

In a time when all the functions are out of joint

Regardless of the sad hellos and sweet adieus in bogus chronicles

I present myself equal to the task and with every trampling, I rise.

I set the sun ablaze with the radiance of my aura, I’m beyond compromise.

Complete like a set of Divinity’s tools, I remain effectively unshakeable.

Predestined to a point I just can’t lose. It’s irrevocable.

But am I asking too much to be abandoned to my destiny?

Does it come across as an element of mutiny cause I seek the accomplished life?

Each time I ride the lonely path, how come I seem to inspire multiplied strife?

I’m just trying to play my part while constructing that unique personality

I’ve come to acknowledge as the real me in an endless sea of humanity.

I’m practically walking thru walls defying impossibility

But compromise seems to be the rule of the majority.

I asked to be left alone and you gave me a name.

Yet, you just can’t see me trudging thru on my own and that’s a shame.

Cause no human can perform the least instruction in the book of my destiny

Surely, not I, if I renounced my identity.

And here’s something all this rush has taught me to never forget:

And that’s besides glorying in the faith that looks thru death,

On the road to somebodyness the keyword is respect.

Akpan

Day 27: Conceit

Photo: chalkboardquotes.wordpress.com

A single road forked in a yellowed wood,

The unfolding read like a mellow book

For the visually impaired.

Open secrets are designed to trap all existing without a care.

So I pick up the pieces of the puzzles of the life

I discarded on my path to strife.

And I count my losses,

As I get off my high horses.

Retribution

Will be the reward of all machinery of persecution.

I lay down my baton

Like a beat up penitentiary warden

And pick up my courage,

Ammunition and a multiplication of soulja rage.

Now on the streets, everybody that see me

They really wanna be me, cause the degree

Of the set of ideals I accomplish

Are exotic treasures to relish.

A breath in the wind

Is the measure of the adversary’s wit.

I pull myself together, like a dose of forever

And straddle momentum like a speedometer.

My reality speaks like an oracle

Forcing eternity to pierce the temporal with its tentacle.

In a most profound way,

It inspires thoughts of better days.

I have compromised the vanity of people-hating

For the exquisite beauty of ingenuity;

I was born of desperate fury;

A seed of the poetic glory.

My triumph will invent a unique existence,

And tear up every wall of resistance.

In a nutshell,

The days of my life will amaze, will daze

Like a fairytale’s spell.

Akpan

Day 26: Fierce Urgency

Photo: billfrymire.com

In the eyes of my mind,

I contemplate the vast proportions of the mystery of the needle.

Beyond all the trite inconsistencies of life, I realize

There’s a method to solving Fate’s ineluctable riddle.

My fears unleash me

Into a realm bounded by unbelievable possibilities,

Over and above the dimension of unmitigated stupidity.

The finish line divides the track before my sites

Like superficial streams; the aftermath of violent rain.

And as fierce as an aggressive fight,

Personal rage engages pain.

System is insane.

I begin all over again

After the flip of the last page,

Pulling out all the stops for past and present struggles

And utilizing them as frame of reference.

Reminiscing about the hurdles;

Stitches of memory interwoven complete as a sentence.

Every hunch of progress is a pronouncement of vengeance

On the days of living constantly at tiptoe stance.

My fury breathes a life

That is stronger than a lie,

To initiate a war where courage blends

And intervolves with fear to install an expected end.

Akpan

Day 25: Signs of Majesty

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I wait not for what man can give,

I never spared a care anyway.

Cause what a man can give,

A man can take away.

And I will not be relieved

Of the gift I received.

On my two firm feet

I will stand above the elements of defeat.

And conquer a cavalry of conceit.

But in the meanwhile, I will not be subjected by limits.

And until my glory is complete,

My valiant struggles will be replete,

And my prophecies ain’t gon’ deplete.

Thus, I thrive like a seed

Planted by the seven streams.

My tide will neither ebb nor recede.

Instead I will multiply like reed

Beside the Nile till all eyes crave to read

The memories of the myself of me,

And righteously covet my dream.

Cause I intend to exceed

Every single expectation, indefinitely reseed

And ravel out a mystery that’s been prevailing

Before the foundation of the world came to be.

Akpan

Day 24: Broken Chains

Photo: tewalkerjr.com

Self-deceit is a foulmouthed teller of lies.

I am one to tell since I been thoroughly baptized

Into the order of his unfortunate fellowship.

And I’ve been duly done in by surface relationships.

Cause I been

Racing against walls by all means invisible,

Tripping over rocks that were remotely mental,

So eventually I got unstable

By leaning my strength on things inconsequential.

Erratic tendencies

Been the bane of my struggles, from my spot on a ledge facing the future,

The past returns to haunt me like the hordes of nemesis.

You tell me, what soul suffers a seizure

At the invasion of delectable ecstasies?

My mind is all worked up

At the very instance of peace;

I hear the voices of the storm

In the perfect center of tranquility.

I conquer wars

Only to fuss over a battle,

Tilting at windmills

As easily startled as cattle.

I searched for answers in winds

That cooked up a tempest in a teacup.

My entire faculty experiences disequilibrium

Cause it’s taunted by a faceless, nameless crowd.

But all the while broken chains is all…

I know how stupid that sound

But broken chains is all…

Though, my mind still argues against it now,

I know beyond a doubt

Broken chains is all that held me bound.

And it’s straight out o’ the horse’ mouth,

Broken chains is all that held me down.

Akpan

Day 23: Difficult Days

Photo: photographywest.com

The summer has passed, the harvest has ended but, we are not saved.

Sleepy leaves rustle as zephyr’s breath deftly turns the page,

Marshaling out the last article of daylight;

Another 24 neutralized.

Dilemma illustrates the dressing room of my soul

The aftermath is in small stages, grabbing a foothold.

Seeds of corrupt tendencies tell tales

Of the loss of compassion’s strum.

The dawn unveils

The spirit of warriors forlorn.

These are days of pain

But I’m not one to pass the buck or to blame.

Can’t get stuck with what the system made me;

Ain’t gon’ let the hate diagrams be my taste buds’ appeal.

Surviving in this death game means finding our way back home

Before darkness like a mighty army plunders the spoils of the soul,

And sequesters the residuum of subdued courage.

Falsity holds the control stick in this hour of nature’s eclipse

Like a terrorist manipulates his hostage.

The entrance of morning light is like a slow painful creep;

The essence of life pines away silenced in solitary.

Ill wind is blowing again,

An anniversary of misery,

A jaunt through referred pain.

That’s the succinct recital of ever day living.

There exists a constant fearful yield to the enemies of the race of man

In a time that witnesses the light of hope dimming.

Labor of love has lost its appeal for the man of valiance.

We may have sold off our souls beyond redeeming.

Akpan

Day 22: Soul Odyssey

Photo: guardian.co.uk

For Mali

We run a race of an unmarked finish line

On a track spiked like the back of a porcupine.

Men lacking the capacity for deep feeling conceived the ruthless disease

Holding out the pot of honey only to buzz and sting like bees.

Souls of mankind stranded in a maze.

The only way out is the hard way,

Cause a hint of achievement sparks up a rat race.

As human souls are absorbed by constant warfare

A state of emergency charges up the atmosphere.

It’s easy to get in but a different story getting out.

If anybody’s ever going to survive this stint is still a case in doubt.

Frustration is modus operandi

And all vanities are stretched to the extreme.

These are the times it’s almost logical

That the very core of men’s intent turns diabolical.

The race course runs through the depths of pain.

In this situation, hate seems the natural diagram to paint.

Every milestone covered commands fear to a certain degree,

We have been brought down on bended knee

And pulling it through is like the labors of Hercules.

Existing in this life is a picture perfect painting of the apocalypse.

Is there hope of a point in time a hiatus would emerge?

Cause truth is mortalized and all ethical motive sabotaged.

As a consequence for the suffering comes bitching

To devastate every sense of rationality.

If mortals are indeed architects of their own destiny,

Then right here, right now, we are from the least to the greatest, history.

Akpan

Day 21: 1,000 Walls

Photo: daytobeyou.com

1,000 walls

Complected and aligned side to side

Could not cripple my intellectual function,

Neither flush the fire in my fight.

I am a rage, who is hyperventilating,

My dream is a doped up athlete that’s a-running.

My path is flooded with everlasting light.

Like a river overflowing its bank,

Plus, there is no ebb in my tide.

I set my radar and even if it be on a plank

I will make it to the other side,

I’m crossing over the deluge of impossibilities.

Then I will morph my solitary fantasy

Into a million stunning realities.

Persecuted to perfection,

Emancipated from soul corruption,

My faculty is alienated from random contradiction.

I have been ransomed by the challenges I’ve gone through;

Redeemed from the clutches of mortal damage

To be reinvented from raw stuff with brand new tissue.

My entire system illuminated, my senses engaged.

Fervor mutating from fear,

Uncertainty conceiving courage to dare,

Fading luster, daunted hopes, stunted faith,

And pain magnified, all worked in mysterious ways

To resurrect a phoenix from his pile of ashes.

A special delivery from emissaries of grace

Distributing sheaves of goodness in deliberate flashes.

I am tomorrow’s today,

What else could I say?

I produce a shine that blinds the sun;

I am a hereafter that exhales through an offed past;

I am like the weed which develops buds to blossom

Roses straight out from a concrete’s crack.

I am a cool cup of water in scorching heat;

I am a practical phenom who defies analytic thinking.

I am like a moment of bliss that keeps up unceasing;

I am rage engulfed by passion;

I am a raw, deep emotion.

I am originality walking, breathing in the flesh of man

This is who I am,

It is all I could ever hope to be or have.

Akpan

Day 20: Manual Disconnect

Photo: stuficionado.net

Straight out o’ the shadows of my past

I emerge like a torn off branch flung up by a blast,

And I invade the world’s stage like a seasoned cast,

As I rewrite my history, skillfully.

Touched not by the scars of slavery

But by the elements of mastery.

I have been forged by a unique pedigree

One whose entire bloodline has been kings.

I present my case

As one of a profoundly celebrated race;

And in this place of shame and disgrace

I have attained a special state of genuine grace.

A beautiful, reputable brew of Negro

Molded by circumstances I survived into human ammo.

Cause I heeded the voice calling beyond the heat of the inferno.

The days of my life are like a totem pole:

Every exhale represents something; I’m game.

I’m about erasing the account of shame,

And purging the stigma set on a name.

I am yesterday that will not vanish from memory;

I am today that persists indefinitely;

I am tomorrow, I am symbol of immortality.

The darkest phase of an eclipse,

I have ascended within a prophecy

To manifest as an article of potency.

And like an authentic, personified apocalypse,

I annihilate the blinded course of hypocrisy.

I have come to accept the reality of who I am;

A concrete representation of the Son of Man.

I multiply in billions like dust in the harmattan.

I pulled the plug on anything that stands against my identity,

And charged my faculty to disconnect from falsity.

Akpan