Day 9: Right to Rewrite

In eternity’s eyes,

I see the parody of humanity

As I witness the sun of darkness arise

Blinding our senses with callous impunity,

Men of all ages

Have wandered from age to age,

Scarcely stilling the storm that rages.

How much longer before we get to the stage

Where our race is emancipated

From the corruption of the soul?

When the race of man is exalted

Lifted up to that pedestal where the

Heart finds repose?

I am only a dot,

A speck of dust

In the operation of things.

But this is my history.

I owe to responsibility.

It is my prerogative to rewrite it;

To be the architect of its streamlining,

As I take a walk thro the lion’s den

Brandishing the refined tip of my pen.

Akpan

Day 8: Shudder at the Memory

Phenomena.NationalGeographic.Com

The wind is blowing.

Rearranging all I ever believed in.

I still shudder at the memory

As I remember the pained losses.

My heart is filled

With an abundance of drought.

I progress in a solitary rust.

Times have changed,

Churning and churning like milk turning cheese,

Fluttering away like that fabled winged chariot,

Leaving desolation behind in its trail.

Storm clouds gather like 10,000 samurai knights

Passionately sousing my moments and my days

With evil's delight.

In vain I've awaited the sun after the rain

The climax is delayed.

I view my world thro the eye of the hurricane

The dreaded symptoms rustle the lilies

I can only hope; pray for strength to take it

All in my stride.

I thrust my head away from my wounded pride

Bitching like a broken bride,

Betrayed on her wedding night.

Akpan

Day 7: Still Breathing

Seven years ago I debut on the internet.
This one's specially for the confused young man
who threw in his all.

I have lived on a razor edge all my life,

But I’ve had my senses filed like a soldier’s knife.

It’s not been easy, not exactly what you’d call

A fairytale setting but I’ve had some good fun.

I’m still healing from the pain, still dealing with aches,

The memories still fill me with rage, a rip in my days.

I’m feeling the scars and there’s still some sore spot

But these are just keepsakes from the battles I’ve won.

I’m growing in the same space I picked myself back up

I’m not just surviving I’m thriving straight for the top.

I’m into this feeling so deep I could do it for a living

And it all comes down to one thing; I’m still breathing.

Akpan

Day 6: Unnamed

Will I know my mission

Through a tearful vision?

Perceive my destination

Within the elements of frustration?

How does a man live

When his soul will not believe?

Will I begin

When I have come to the end of all beginnings?

How do I define

A mission I may never find?

What lies beyond

The finish line

Is the multiple resurrection of questions.

In a brittle attempt to bridge the divide,

I struggle to put my mission in perspective

Enthusiastic obstacles irrespective.

The expectations I cannot perceive

Overrun my mind with parasitic uncertainty.

If I had to swim 10,000 seas,

It’ll make little difference if I wade a million lakes,

Until I set foot over the shoreline, the qualities

That will put a face to my vision will bear no name.

Akpan

Day 5: Myself of Me

Aint nobody else in this whole world I’d rather be.

Somebody who’s always evolving but stays the same;

Who keeps it locked because he’s constantly growing.

He lives within but he lives it loud so his life breaks

Out on all creation like the dawn of a brand new day.

Aint nobody else steadily sticks closer than the skin,

Flesh of my flesh got ties thicker than high-tension wire.

He bows and dips in the stream of my inner mystery

Because he is and can ever only be the fish in my blue sea;

He is the captain of my team and the crew of my ship.

Aint nobody else worth shooting for none comes close.

He is the I in the myself of me he’s my positive overdose,

Fate set us a date and time equipped us with the attitude,

Together we got skills, divided we just a bunch of fools.

It’s obvious cause I am what I am and cannot be reduced.

Akpan

Day 4: Maya

And still you rise

Phenomenally

Beyond the bars of compromise,

Perfecting womanhood in one black body.

Trailing the flames of withering injustice

You have arrived on a verse of one million realities.

Like the verdict to a racist world,

Thru the voice of the printed word.

You have initiated a poetic odyssey;

Planted a seed in the soil of a young mind.

You are the raceless nation's oracle of prophecy

I hope to meet in that big ghetto in the sky.

Akpan

Day 3: Disturb'd

Courtesy: funniestmemes.com

Sure you thought I was keeling over,

So you decided to make me pull over.

Make me turn around and follow the general direction.

Please don’t disturb me.

I’m only having a revelation.

Don’t disturb me.

I’m about to reach my destination.

Ama keep my peace of mind thank you.

Ama ride this controversy cause I paid my dues.

Sure you saw me struggling and moved to lend a hand

Please don’t disturb me.

You just can’t dig my program.

Don’t disturb me.

I just gleaned the perfect plan.

Keep your quarter I’m done here brother,

I’m doing just fine surrounded by drama.

I’m being bettered and you don’t hear me whining

Please don’t disturb me.

My mind’s musing immutable things.

Don’t disturb me.

In a moment ama walk thru that exit.

Akpan

Day 2: You Don't Know Me

You bet your butt it’s complicated.

But I got a feeling you already knew that.

This thing called curiosity’s highly overrated,

Cause this aint about how the cat sat on the mat.

This is my story and it aint as simple as it seems.

You don’t know the score about my itinerary.

Cause you don’t know me.

I’m sure you can show me the way to the city;

Maybe, talk the devil into setting himself on fire,

And narrate an accurate account of my glory.

But you’ll ever only manage the plot of a satire.

Cause the real me resides in the heart of the matter.

And since you don’t bother with affairs of the deep,

You don’t really know me.

I know how you think but you don’t know who I am.

You can’t have a handle on the ideals for which I stand.

That’s the same reason you can’t grasp how I was made,

Or wrap your fingers around the battles I have waged.

You may see me

But you can’t possibly know me.

You aint been in what I lived in

Believe me, dude you don’t know me.

Akpan

Day 1: I Know

I know how it feels to be let down

I know the taste of sweat off the brow

I know how it feels to pick yourself up from off the ground

And strive to straddle the pieces with the arms of doubt

I know about the shadow at the end of the tunnel

I know about the respite within a hurricane funnel

I know how it feels to aim and fall just shy of your target

I know how the pick of drama unburies the hatchet

And swings its blade so it hacks away at your confidence

I know life’s school takes some hard knocks lessons

These are merely a handful of the stuff I know

And knowing ‘em fills me with appropriate rage

Because I know that what I know about myself controls

The atoms that keep busting like soap bubbles in my face

The person I am has been visored by this knowing

I’ve had my psyche cranked up by the rush of adrenalin

It feels real good walking in the light of this revelation

I wake in the still of the night to tell myself congratulation

The air I exhale is perfect my vista is breathtaking

It’s lifting me higher and man do I know it

Akpan

Built on Tragedies

Courtesy: UNHCR (@Refugees)
Mother and child, refugees from South
Sudan find pleasure in each other.

Before my time

I was conceived to multiply

And increase the influence of genius

In a realm where ignorance is surplus.

A mystery dispatched from the stars

By special delivery to inspire mortal hearts.

Like the stirring of intuition;

Like a premature seed piercing a rock

To introduce a forest of inventions.

My mission is born.

Before my time

I was conceived to multiply.

Perceived by the multitude

As the oasis of the promise;

I triumph still without excuse.

Sifting reality from chaff of fantasies.

I evoke wide jaws

Like a foetus

Fulfilling biblical prophecy.

As I ride the rage of the storm in timeless majesty.

Akpan

Rust on the Razor

Photo Courtesy: UNHCR (@refugees)
This child refugee from South Sudan says she wants to be a
nurse when she grows up. Still keeping the faith even in exile.

There's some pretty girl but homeless

Say she wanna be a nurse when she grow up.

Shaken but already thinking of healing the hopeless

Cause in the darkness real stars keep their head up.

Now ain't that some jewel you wanna look up or hook up

Or maybe root for to have a shot at life in days to come.

This wonderful light ain't gatto be this way

We gatto make a change strive to create a better day.

Journey with 'em thro their misery be the emissary

Of luxury it's not chemistry it’s necessary we make history

Come, give me your hand. Help her stand. Be the man.

We can turn her plan to something grand. Yes we can.

Akpan

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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

No Questions Asked

Happy Birthday to my Mama and a great woman -
Deaconess Eka Akpan

Mma

If that name ain't the sweetest thang like a lump of sugar.

I was going to say you taught me everything I ever knew

But then I reflect on the times you broke me off the horns of a dilemma

And it's like damn near impossible to make who you are more beautiful.

Mma

Your love is like a story that keeps unspooling long after the tome is closed.

My heart explodes with untamed emotion but words fall just shy of expression;

How do I even begin when you are my beginning, I'm lost in your shadow.

My affection knows no bounds; it's as wide as the breadth of the ocean.

Mma

Just the thought of you sets an avalanche in motion,

Your pure devotion takes my breath away, like a blast of golden gas.

If I had to do this over, if I had a choice in my own conception;

Mma, I’ll root for you and I’ll do it in a heartbeat no questions asked.

Akpan

From a Cell 8

The 8-foot cell that was Mandela's home on Robben Island.

One man

(And he was no ordinary man)

Had a vision and moved the motion to take a stand

The self-named lords tagged him bad gone mad

And shipped the hell-raiser off to rot on an isolated island.

But his was a story that couldn’t be caged behind metal bars.

One man

(I said he wasn't no ordinary man)

Opened his mouth to speak and his voice rose beyond his cell bars

And the nuance of his message held steady thro out every land;

A song of infinite hope that screamed the line, if you believe you can.

The man died but the memories of him live in the legacy of his plan.

One man

(You know, he was no ordinary man)

Learned that courage ain't in the strength of your arms

But triumph over the stuff that cripples your very heart.

The life he led drove the highpoints home like nail piercing plank,

His words reassure us like stars guiding travelers in the dark.

Akpan

Lethal Verbs

Don't ever let nothin' hold you back.

I can’t be broken

Not by a speck of struggle.

That's what I call this entire token.

I am the majesty of the rubble.

Even though I came up hard,

Through practice I learned nothing

Is ever too hard

To subdue. 'Specially to him

Who's got somethin' up his sleeves.

No matter how a friend deceives

I'm gonna pick up the pieces,

Count my losses

Beat the dust off my butt

Then aim right back for the top.

Nuthin will ever take me apart

Cause I'm a man weaned from the heart.

I'm stuck on my dreams

Like a dot of stain

On bleached white sheet.

I'm as persistent as a toothache

And you can bet, I won't bend to the heat.

Akpan