Smoke Up

You can have a cigarette
If you smoke
Like chimneys no regret
Get it tokin.
Have a seat, relax
Throw your feet n' max
Rewind n' unwind
You're fine git your shine.
But let me ask you
What's on the menu?
Do you keep wake to
Think over the blues
Half the world's going through?
News of grave kabooms?
Go on, smoke up
But who does the math?
Ever get hung up
On who bells the cat?
When they throw a war
Who gets the crumb?

Akpan

Connoisseur

In the voice of a refugee who's lost all.

I find refuge within myself

I must turn to nobody else

I got big promises to keep

And no one else will do for me

I harbor solace inside my heart

I must or quit before I start.

I must take this soul odyssey

I must proceed by what I see

And taste and touch, by what I bleed.

I must find refuge within me

I lost it all except for me.

I’ve come from a place of misery

I find refuge within no one,

There is no one who is someone

Who dares lift me outta this one;

I am the reason I go on.

I must seek no source of comfort

Besides the man in the mirror

I severed all ties with this world,

Now I’m a connoisseur in horrors.

Akpan

X: Revisited

For the child that died before delivery during a Boko Haram raid of a Borno village.

Half of this hemisphere,
Half of the other;
None of this hemisphere,
None of the other.

Akpan