Question I Am

Internally Displaced Child, Nigeria
Photo Courtesy: newsweek.com

Will I ever find that someone who is

The answer to the question that I am?

That person who is the meaning of me

Of myself, who can make my feet stand firm?

Will I ever find that specialty in

Out of the way places or by wishful

Thinking? This is someone I gatto be.

Will I be fulfilled when my search is thro?

I’m busting with questions where’s the reply?

I gatto be the dream that haunts me;

Will I find truth in the black of my eye?

When he comes will he be on the real?

But if he’s the answer that I seek,

Will he not make the parts of me sync?

Will I ever find that someone who can

Offer straight answers to the question I am?

Akpan

Dialogue of Bullets

It's sad that Shi'ite leaders got caught in military crossfire. But I think the irony is
how their followers mustered the courage and faced soldiers who were armed with
weapons yet, they've done absolutely nothing about taking Boko Haram insurgents
out of business. A governor of a northern Nigeria state said the sect is spread across
the 19 states in the north of Nigeria... imagine such a formidable force pouring the
measure of wrath unleashed on soldiers out on Boko Haram? This is the kind of
situation that makes you ask, "What's really going on?"

You may write me up on the wall

In blood-dipped paint brush.

But I will rather die in yonder

Inferno than live in mental slavery.

I don't mind been called a hell raiser

But I think ya'll barking up the wrong tree.

While we died none broke the code of silence.

The table turns on you; you resort to violence.

If you'd expressed half the enthusiasm

From the onset of this onslaught for real,

You won't stand on the wrong side of the chasm

Acting out your spiteful hypocrisy.

Why you turn on us? The dogs are out there.

Why drop the attitude when we was bombed?

Who you fooling, why was yous acting scared?

You boldly faced the soldiers armed with slugs.

You shoulda preached that zeal all up the North;

Staged an uprising against calculated terror.

You held your peace when terror cut school kids down;

And they yelling threats from outside our walls, now?

If you wanna bring it, bring it we still here.

We never heard you hate on Boko Haram

Seems when it rains on you your voice comes clear.

Your reaction proved you to be quite an ass.

Akpan

Unalloyed

Recently, the Nigerian military murdered (unintentionally)
some Shiite leaders. This is so they don't lose sight of the
big picture. The fight to end Boko Haram goes on.

The temptation to agree with your critics

Is destroying you gradually

Chewing you up on the inside like cancer;

Introducing rot into your emotional liver.

You don't make progress, brother

Riding one article of other folk's opinion.

But you'll commit blunders

On the most basic of criterion.

You really ought to know better

Ain't nobody taking the fall but you.

Who gets the blame for playing the fool?

They don't give a care

How well you fare.

Just wanna use you

Then they dump you like used up shoes.

Pry your eyes wide

Open brother, gatto be wise.

The night is young

It's the time when stars shine.

Shake off the dust and rise like a song

Flung all the way up to heaven soaring free of compromise

Like a true master of destiny.

And make it your responsibility

To carve out a personal path to glory.

Akpan

Related articles

• Boko Haram attack on three Nigeria villages 'kills 30'
• Latest Boko Haram attack leaves 30 dead, 20 injured
• Nigerian Military Finds Muslim Leader With Bullet Wound Hiding In 'Bunker,' Over 100 Arrested
• 10 killed in Shiite Muslims clash with Nigerian military
• Muslim Terrorists Kill at Least 30, Wound 20 More in Nigeria Attacks

The Assassination of X

Sometime in January, Boko Haram terrorists razed a town in
North East, Nigeria killing a 'woman in labor.' In the words of a
witness, “Half of the baby boy (was) out and she died like this.”
This poem is for the unnamed boy who I called 'X.'

And who hears when we call and comes running?

Who waits up for us and keeps the lamp burning

To show the path home when twilight is dawning?

Who reaches out when we face a chasm yawning?

And swoops us up just before we keel over falling

To our deaths in a fissure that is always gnawing?

The value of x is, for all practical purposes, unresolved;

He’ll for all time be a mystery because he died unnamed,

His spot is uninhabited for he never set foot on this sod.

The death of x is, beyond all reasonable doubt, a shame;

Not he or his Mama deserved that baptism in cold blood,

No one will ever know what x was cut out for or his gain.

The tale of x is, contrary to common belief, an ill weapon

To bludgeon the foe cause he died before he came thence,

We can turn pain to gain and make them pay for our loss.

The value of our x they must be made to feel, is priceless.

Akpan

Switched

For all those years I thought the Boko Haram insurgency was
an extended spell of the infamous Northern Nigeria riots

Incomplete, that’s the definition of me without a you

It’s taken me a while but the blinders are down it’s true.

I’ve seen my wrong I know I’ve been such a fool not to.

Unfeeling had me like and I said, ‘It’ll pass.’ That’s cruel.

Why do I visualize paradise but get paralyzed

By the sight of you otherwise immortalized?

I’ll rime till it’s sunrise n’ your night turns brite,

Time I switched sides, be a bona fide paradigm.

‘A few more days,’ I said, ‘and it’ll be gone with the wind.’

While you died in plain sight I let fear lax my heartstrings,

But time taught me not to wait for what tomorrow brings;

I am what brings tomorrow so I rise on a dayspring scream.

Why do I visualize paradise but get paralyzed

By the sight of you otherwise immortalized?

I’ll rime till it’s sunrise n’ your night turns brite,

Time I switched sides, be a bona fide paradigm.

Akpan

Tightrope

For the Chibok Girls

Here I sit in my room alone but alone,

Tossed in mixed-up emotion’s throes,

Dying to live where your pain lives;

Breathless in anticipation of the impact

I want to hurt your hurt bring you release,

Trap the sunshine in a cup revamp your spark.

Tho I can’t read the scars on the skin of your heart

I’ll give anything for five minutes to play your part.

I wish I could trade an exhale for a million sighs;

Heave the tug of your burden shoulder high

Until I hear myself scream, ‘please, no more!’

Yet this much is true, no one can erase your worth.

Akpan

When We Bleed

If I needed someone

Would you be my redemption?

If I needed 100% and nothing less

Would you offer the best of yourself;

Spooling till there’s nothing left to give?

And would you not do it free and easy

Would you bleed when we bleed to death?

Would you freeze the Atlantic to erase the threat?

Before terror brings a nation of millions to her knees?

Won’t you help us?

While there’s still an “us” breathing oxygen?

Won’t you help us?

If I came crashing down,

Would you catch me before I hit the ground?

If I called to you on a clarion,

Would the answer in the wind convey the nostrum?

Would you walk with me thro a landmine?

Can I trust you with my heart in my darkest night?

Won’t you help us?

Won’t you help us?

Won’t you help us?

Won’t you help us?

Akpan