Bipolar apart
By Lechi Eke
You are shouting without speaking
Lucid without words
What you’re saying is so loud
I fear for my eardrums.
You’re of a dual personality,
But not of schizophrenia
What you say and what you do are bipolar apart
Your gentle touch and caring voice
Violently belies the look in your eyes,
The look in your eyes filled with ice –
Ice thawing with loath
I hear the question unspoken,
How can I kill you undiscovered?
Conversation with God
Hello, dear Father!
When you made them man and woman,
Did you forget something that would bind them together?
Like, happily ever-after?
No.
No?
I can’t see it.
Yes, because you have to find it.
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You missed the wounded one…
Last night, I cried like a baby
My tears flowed down and watered the blood dripping
From my fingers.
The bathroom door hit me badly
And soundly you slept.
I knew that sleep –
You slept so soundly I knew you were awake
And you heard my cry, my sobs and my moans
Night after the night I cried,
You moved to me and I,
Ready to melt in your arms;
Received the pin-down of the nightmare
The nightmare of the W craft you practised against me.
And you reached for my fingers;
You grabbed two bending them
To break them backwards
But you missed the wounded one.
The wounded one was kept safe
By the power of the Almighty.
I am the wounded one
With unseen wounds and broken heart
What I saw and came
Is not what I came and saw
I am the wounded one
But you can’t touch me
Because I bear in my body,
The marks of His suffering,
The price He paid for me to live!
Hungry for my blood…
What are you doing?
You asked as I packed my stuff
Praying and crying, the tears flowing…
Your eyes lovey-dovey look down on me
I have seen that look before –
When I woke up in the middle of the night and
Saw the cat not created nor sired
Watching me intently from the top of my fence
Looking into my room
Doleful and soulful her eyes –
Hungry for my blood.
I wish I could go…
I wish I could go,
I wish I could move on –
But there are decades between us
That cannot be packed in one luggage.
I heard a voice at the crossroads –
A voice behind me –
He who brought us together says,
Tarry still. Learn not the way of the heathen,
Ha! I bellowed.
Tarry, He repeated.
I pharaoh’s heart hardened.
To his knees I brought him,
To know there’s only one God
And His name is not pharaoh!
But you said to me,
Lock the door for –
See! I’m on my way out,
You may not open the door
When I from outside lock it.
I checked, you were kind enough
To carefully close it so,
I can open it easily and
Go out of your life.
How did we get here?
How did we get here?
Who did us dirty?
Thought we were good together?
Thought it was forever after?
We heard ourselves when we talked quietly,
Now, shouting, we can’t hear a thing we say.
Disillusioned poems written Wednesday, 22 February 2023 for the Satiric Poems Collection
