You Again

Courtesy: @noveliciouss (Twitter)

And I will worship You again.

And again, and again, and again

Until my soul meets with You

And all that I am is one with You.

I will walk through that veil

And I will worship You again.

Akpan

Playing Me

Courtesy: @noveliciouss (Twitter)

You know I thought you was strong.

But it seems you were playing me all along,

You're one more face in the throng

Somehow, I thought you was strong.

I managed to figure you wrong

Posing that cliché of young and dumb

While you rapped my feelings like a song

Last time it worked, this time it bombed.

Akpan

E Ain't E

Courtesy: @noveliciouss (Twitter)

Never was enough really enough

People often translate the word wrong

Be careful, you do not take the fall

And assume that enough means no more.

Enough is a fantastical stuff

Another way of calling a fool's bluff

It'd never be enough

If you could have more.

And when you get some

Enough is never ever enough.

Akpan

She's The Law

Ramatullahi, the Somali refugee
who recently bagged a law degree.
She's the first in her family.
Courtesy: UNHCR

Yo! Bartender! pour out the drinks, 🍷

It's time to make the glasses clink. 🍻

Let's raise a toast 

To the one-woman👠show,

The celebrant and the host.

Rama was repulsed by anything less

And so she raised the bar, ⚖️

And hit the top of the shelf

From the downtowns of Somalia.

Now she lives on this side of town

Where wings no longer count.

She was a refugee,

She drafted her own creed,

She then bagged a law degree,

She's but the first in her pedigree.

Congratulations to the Somali

Vamos! Ramatullahi!

And when you wear that gown,

Girl, straddle that wig

Like a diamond-studded crown,

Cause you is a queen.

I raise my glass 🥂

To a lady of class.

Akpan

Otherworlds

Courtesy: @noveliciouss (Twitter)

Behind the music,

Behind the words,

There is an open sesame

Leading into another world,

Access is encrypted in a strange dialect

Decoded only by heart, never the intellect.

Behind the music,

Every rhythm is a feel-in

Diction evident in each lilt

Behind the words,

There is a silence that lulls

Flitty nerves into creative storms.

Behind the walls of a soundtrack

There's nuff space to crawl in,

Fold your limbs and turn your back

To the noisome pestilence the day brings.

The music sets the tone,

The words create an organic envelope,

And all of a sudden, you find reason to hope.

There is a touch of magic

Behind the music,

Behind the words

That jaunts you to otherworlds

Than these.

Akpan

Dream 22222

Millions of Myanmans fighting for their democracy.
Who ever could have thought military coups would
still be a thing in the 21st century?
Courtesy: Twitter

The dreams I dream

Are but stuff of dreams

Spread on thick

Like cream on salad,

Like mayo on burger

Already dripping with butter.

I mean why even bother?

My dream's reality on the Big Screen,

Such illusions that make you wanna scream.

This dream I dream

Don't need no script:

Here there be tygers

And spiders that breed monsters.

My dream is a gallery

Displaying the crippling of a people's will

And the shitty rise of the military.

Ridiculous thesis involving hearses

That's how unscrupulous earth is. 

My dream is of home,

Guns n' roses and buried hope. 

My dreams are grim,

My lungs' filled to the brim. 

My dream of creatures without a soul,

Brandishing skulls and crossbones,

Punctuating political polls.

The dreams I dream

Are but the stuff of dreams.

Akpan

Vaccine

Courtesy: @FillipoGrandhí (Twitter)

When the enemy rushes in

Like a Covid stigma via exclusion from vaccine

Steady coming at you like sharks to meat

And you have assumed the name of refugee,

God help you

If your feet don't fail you…

It's like a shot of adrenaline to the head

Feeling the despair of the displaced

Something close to the outrage

Goin' on for the Texas outage. 

Where is that River

Whose very streams make glad

The City of God?

Let it flow to all in asylum,

And flood desolate shores

With monoclonal shots of unalloyed love. 

Today and for always

Let's all raise the refrain,

'If one gets a shot,

All gets a shot.'

It don't matter your nationality

As long as you got your ID;

The soul of a human being.

I have as much right to get a shot,

As you have a right to get a shot. 

Stop the exclusion trend.

Make it happen! 

Akpan

A Heart For All Seasons

Audre Lorde
Warrior, Poet, Mother

For Audre Lorde

If I had a heart for all seasons, 

A heart that perceives

The friend in every person,

Yet will draw out the snitch

For the hype he really is;

A heart that's molded from pure gold

And yet makes room for earth's trash.

Because he believes the best is yet to be told. 

And so it ain't necessary to reheat

The overrated skillet of ash. 

If I had a heart for all seasons,

I'll sacrifice excuses for good reasons,

And guard my heart above all else

Until I generate power to revive dead cells.

A heart that beats in and out of season

A heart with an ear that's quick to lísten

Such a heart is like silver

With a bust of Caesar,

Refined seven times.

A heart that crosses immortal lines. 

Akpan

Busting On A

 

You only know my story 📚

But you're yet to see🙈 my glory 👑

I know you ain't hating ☠️

Not 🚫 exactly. 

You're just conforming to pop thinking 🤔

Still I won't let you downtalk 👄

Cause my faculty is on drugs.💉

I'm so high 🥃up on genius 

I'm busting like an A-bomb. 💥

You see, you assume what I'm going through👟 

Yet, you have no idea💡that I'm coming through.🚪

My life is the setting of a bestselling story; 📚

I am the iconic life of the party. 🎉

So don't laugh 😂

If all you see is a draft.📃

I am God's masterpiece 🎨

In the making,

The early pages 📖

Of a Divine epic.

Yo, by the way,

You'd abuse my glory 👑

At any rate.

Cause you never really dug my story.📚

Akpan

If I Fail

Early draft of Toy Story characters
Courtesy: @Pixar (Twitter)

If I fail 💔

You'll find bombs 💥in your mail 💌,

And I, gone without blazing a trail. 🛣️

I got the tiger 🐅 by the tail,

And I don't care if it showers 🌧️hail.

If I don't get this float ⛵to sail, 🌊

Ama get 🔫 you even if you's in jail 

Or when I spy 🕶️ you coming

Home 🏡 after you post bail.💰

I just got to get my sumthin'

And I'm not one to wail. 😭

I'll ride 🚲 this one-way train 🚂

Against the grain🌾

Or it's chain⛓️ you to the rail.

So if I fail, 

I'm coming down⬇️on you

Like sledgehammer 🔨on nails.

No blackouts,🌑 no interludes. 📺

Akpan

Moment-A-Real-Ly

Courtesy: Twitter

I'll have this moment.

I live in servitude to this moment,

My exhales, my dreams, its figments.

Remove this moment and this life is torment. 

I'll take every adversity as compliment

And each cuss as a positive comment.

And yeah, I'll battle a flood of ailment

Just to get paid with an overflow of this moment. 

I stand on the ledge

Of a pal​i​sade but I got an edge;

The gift of this moment.

All the stages of my becoming;

The dregs of my unbecoming

Assumed maturity as a state of being

And exploded into this

Full-blown special thing:

A capsule of panoramic fluidity.

Forever, I'm into this moment

Like the mountain is to Mahomet.

Akpan

Calling Out To You

Courtesy: Twitter (@UN_Women)

I'm calling out to you

Deep intervolving soulful deep.

Within this misty blue,

I'm trying to make out your properties

In a sci-fi setting

That wrest itself free

Of all chemical feelings. 

I dip my fingers in the void

That used to be you, before

Haters turned on the dark,

The lurid silence is an haunted park

That hums n' strums

The jangling discord

That's the new definition of our world.

Still I'm reaching out to you

And I'll be waiting until I see a new you

Climb over the crest of the horizon. 

And fill the world with your orange sun,

Beaming from the cap of the mountaintop. 

Akpan