Standing Vertical

Die on her feet

A daunting feat

But she done did it

When she touched the forbidden

She’s ‘bout eighteen

Going on adrenaline

She had a fantasy

And when down believing

Earnestly

She kept her head up

Though they left her forgone

She couldn’t bear

And didn’t care

She’d rather dare

The devil and slay fear

Right here right now

Mister put me down

And book for the door

Cause my day will come

When men shall recall

The girl who couldn’t abide cowards.

Akpan

Rape is the New Religion

Rape is the new religion
Spreading like a contagion.
Terror is the criterion,
Its disciples are a legion
To them y'all old feeble carrion
They play like the accordion.
Their converts bomb your reunion
And preach their culture like Gideon.
The rape of Chibok by minions;
Ruined orphans plundered and bludgeoned.
Then they demand a bullion
The nerve of these rapscallions;
Ravishing women in their dungeons
Planting their seeds of oblivion
The 'scuse? The girls get the empyrean.
Sex-Demons need a mental surgeon
To castrate their lower region
Hand 'em up to the dark son of Dione.

Akpan

I Know All About Murder

I know all about murder.
There's demons down the border;
Aliens spew death like larva.
I know stuff to make you shudder;
Children bombed from hell to breakfast.
Now school is out in September.
From bad to mad to suicide bombers.
Best become a Koran holder.

Akpan

My Pen Will Dig My Grave

A few years ago, while a Boko Haram sect raided a village, one of the kidnapped Chibok girls was made their arms bearer.
She confided in a villager who happened to know who she was, "Tell my mother you saw me." This poem is for her.

Bear in mind that the Chibok girls were kidnapped for trying to get an education and you'll understand the tone of the following verse.


Tell my mother you saw me;
I bear arms and explosives.
Tell her ama get in touch
Even if, as a human torch.
Providence may plug the distance
And concoct a better consequence

Tell my mother I ain't sorry
Because I owe no apology
For trying to acquire skill.
I'm a female man who loves school.
First I'm going to sharpen my tools,
Next I punch down the glass ceiling.

Because I'll perish, if I must, to read.
I will stay my back to the grind
Till I achieve the educated mind.
Cause I am no mental slave.
And I will study in bondage
Or my pen will dig my grave.

Akpan

Day 30: Nanando

Updated: May 5, 2019

Na.nan.do n. (/na'nan‚doe/) An ibibio word meaning,
flawless, spotless, blameless, without guile.

This one's for the Chibok girl who touched the sky;
The one who was found buried alive.
Boko Haram, I spit on your pride.
We forget not to remember our kind.


Nat King Cole called you 'unforgettable,'
To Vandross, you were 'the one who holds our hearts.'
Tupac Shakur called you, 'untouchable.'
MJ called you, 'a place in our hearts.'
Martin Luther King called you, 'a dream,'
Maya Angelou called you, 'phenomenal.'
Lionel Richie called you, 'my destiny.'
Will Smith called you, 'the Taj Mahal.'
Joe called you, 'a song I love to sing.'
Boyz II Men called you, 'Beautiful Woman.'
Someone called you, 'the answer in the wind.'

But we call you Nanando.
A name worth its weight in gold.
You're the lyric of our magnum opus,
The theme of our never-ending song.
That's why we call you Nanando;
You're the synopsis of our anecdote.

Akpan

Day 16: I'll Stand

It's my Birthday today! 🎂

This one's for all the kidnapped girls.
In all our hearts, you shine like pearls.



You drag me thro mud
But I stand tall.
You whip me with steel chords
But I'm straight ball'n.
You feed me with turd
So you'll hear me bawl.
And take me for a broad
But I won't stall.

But I'll stand
Tho you think I'll fall apart.
I'll stand
If only to prove I can.
I'll lift up my head
And wheel with the stars.
When you take me for dead,
I'll stand.

Just when you think I'm undone
I'll break my fall.
My faith's a loose cannon
Ama wreckin' ball.
You defile me for fun
But I recall.
You think the war's won
But I'm playin' y'all.

You think I'm gone n' out
But I press on.
You think you'll run me down?
So bring it on.
Who you think run things clown?
Got my groove on.
My cries are victory shouts
And I'm game on.

Akpan

Day 15: April 15

A mother reconciles with one of the 21 Chibok girls recently released
by Boko Haram. This poem is written in her POV.
Photo Courtesy: premiumtimesng.com

She touched me.

And brought me sweet release.

And o, the visions that lit my mind

Would make blind men despise sight.

She stepped out of bondage

On a will that matched the mileage,

She touched me and every cold feeling

Thawed like wax and I find I can still believe.

She touched me.

And those pained years are but one minute.

And my fears bled then ran along like a river;

My joys will overflow the banks of the Niger.

She’s made of steel,

A heart that’s dying to live;

All her parts bind because she believed—

That’s what I felt when she touched me.

She touched me.

And brought me sweet release.

And o, the visions that lit my mind

Would make blind men despise sight.

Akpan

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

Dragons of Home

This war on terror is a lot more about the victims-the dead, the displaced,
the missing-than the psychos wreaking havoc. We shouldn't lose sight of
the big picture and end up defeated.
On the side, what do you think they did to this poor girl to make her strap
explosives around her waist? This is our future going up in smoke.

You’re not here n’ how the clause spawns an electric

Arc that saturates this terrain in a wakeless gray rage

I can still hear your voices carried on the night wind,

Deep down the cove where I tuck my private self away,

Full and inextinguishable as it rides down the throes

Of cruel death and irreversible moldering of the bones;

You come to me in my quietude and unknot the knots

And as the puzzle sorts itself out a shape starts to form;

A friend’s face bending in and out of form taunting me

Begging not to be an option but a number one priority

You’re not here and I’m not there and the difference is

All the world but I won’t turn the page and close my eyes

To the heat, it’s the thorn in my flesh that only I must pick

If I must find peace. It’s all about you, it’s hi time I realize

This war aint about Shekau but you free to breathe, to be,

To dig into all of life’s peculiarities as experience hands it

Down the tube. You deserve the attention and compassion

Showered on you and the memories of you will still live on,

That is one fine article of this assurance I will never break

Until triumph busts open the gates bearing you in its wake.

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

200

For the 200+ kidnapped Chibok girls.
And it's my birthday, today!

I ain't in a grave. I don't die.

And I know that what I know about myself eats you up inside.

It's simple logic yet, you can't visualize why I multiply

Beyond the grave. My balls is thicker than my waistline

And the last article of me you erase is this light of mine.

I ain't in the grave. I don't die.

Cause I know there's a spot in this universe only I can fill.

Purpose by design feeds my yenning for home.

My faith is so firm the fear of death don't frighten me.

And can't no incendiary bomb penetrate the walls of my hope.

I ain't in that grave. I don't die.

Everyday I rise above the drama you keep bringing;

Every pain I overcome boosts me up to brave the bleeding;

Every sunrise witnessed is good reason to keep breathing;

Every sunset I survive invites me to keep believing.

I ain't in no grave. I don't die.

Tell Mama, the grave cannot hold down your daughter's life,

Tell Papa, I still believe that one day, ama touch the sky,

Tell Nigeria, this lil’ light still got one more shine,

Tell the world, it's my metamorphosis, ama bust out a sweet butterfly.

But above all, tell everybody: Don't give up the fight;

I multiply beyond the grave. I don't die.

Akpan