Day 16: Unflawed

Photo courtesy: guardian.co.uk

For Achebe. Farewell, Soul Brother!

…And for me. It’s my birthday today.

Nobody, but nobody

Betters my unflawed story.

I have made myself clear to death in no mean terms,

“You ain’t nothing but a provisory gateway

“When it’s hi time, I’m a walk thru you like I earned’t.”

It’s gon’ be nobody’s way but my right of way.

Cause, I am the vision that sticks in your eye;

The picture that stays on your mind;

The oracle that pricks up your ear;

The desire that weighs on your heart.

Cause nobody, but nobody

Betters my unflawed story.

I have made my mistake and been perfected by its making.

I have grown tall by feeding my faculty with the knowledge of me.

In a time when men cringe at the sight of persecution, I triumph still;

I have been weighed on the scale I guess, the scale was found wanting.

Cause, I am the vision that sticks in your eye;

The picture that stays on your mind;

The oracle that pricks up your ear;

The desire that weighs on your heart.

Cause nobody, but nobody

Betters my unflawed story.

Now I do not claim to have been perfect my entire life (nobody is),

But I’ve tried to inject class into my downfalls and bring style to my flaws.

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I traded sighs for smiles. It’s my thing.

I have walked the length and breadth of pain’s corridors; I’m ready for glory falls.

Cause, I am the vision that sticks in your eye;

The picture that stays on your mind;

The oracle that pricks up your ear;

The desire that weighs on your heart.

Cause nobody, but nobody

Betters my unflawed story.

Alone, I have trudged the sewers of despair’s waste

I was like a man stargazing from the bottom of a well.

Misery told his entire story on my body; but it made me chaste.

And now I surfaced like oil whooshing from a rig and I got a story to tell.

Cause I am the vision that sticks in your eye;

The picture that stays on your mind;

The oracle that pricks up your ear;

The desire that weighs on your heart.

Cause nobody, but nobody

Betters my unflawed story.

Still standing, still breathing, still going thru the motions and still thriving;

This is the story of a life that has been subjected to executive drama;

A personal history of a man who has nurtured his soul on tragedy.

The selfsame man who has been translated from tragedy to triumph; a soul brother.

And I am the vision that sticks in your eye;

The picture that stays on your mind;

The oracle that pricks up your ear;

The desire that weighs on your heart.

Cause nobody, but nobody

Betters my unflawed story.

Yes, nobody, but nobody

Betters my unflawed story.

Akpan