I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because the last time I opened up to someone artistically they told me it was pretty dark and I should keep it to myself.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because I was raised in a culture that was anti love and pro meaningless ***. I saw endless commercials about movies that glamorize a lifestyle in which your body is fulfilled but your heart is ignored and at that impressionable age I learned my heart came second but my allure came first and the less I cared that happier I would be and I carried that belief around with me the way I used to carry around a Bible as a child.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because of the time that I opened my father’s phone to reveal a family secret I would hold to this day against my own moral instincts unraveling miles of insecurities wondering if I’m not a good enough daughter or if he stopped loving my mother or if true love was never real and although I had been taught marriage was my purpose, it was what I believed would make me happy, maybe rings aren’t enough to stay in love and maybe people’s feelings change and maybe no one actually has a “one true love” and that this purpose I had been taught was really an endless wild goose chase that only lead to broken families and lost souls.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because sometimes I still wonder why I fell into an abyss of toxicity at such a young age. And when I say wonder I don’t mean a trivial ponder, I mean I contemplate every possible reason why the person who I once believed held the universe in her eyes would lie to my face, why she never kissed me in public and our love was always a secret, why she valued girls with blue hair but my blonde hair was not good enough, why I had to hide bruises from my family when I was still in high school or more importantly, why at the time, I thought I deserved them. These thoughts, this lingering paranoia that I am undeserving of healthy love, they muddy my interpretations of real life and distort reality and effect my relationships. My doctor would call these intrusive thoughts, my best friend would tell me they’re symptoms of PTSD, but I have come to realize that I’ve been burned and I am damaged and I hope to god I can recover.

But you,
Oh god, you
You can write this poem. You can be my safety net while I’m free falling in love. You can be the one to listen to my mental tilt-a-whirls, you can be the one that introduces my body and my heart, you can be the one that calms the storms in my mind when I’m questioning the love I’m deserving of. You are the one who makes sure I fall asleep in my bed after drunk nights, you are the one that still sees my value after acknowledging my flaws.
You can write this poem.

"Why won't you love me back?'' he asked, as he set his coffee down. "I've done everything all others guys do, and yet you still don't reciprocate my feelings." She smiled, her feline pupils dilated at him.
"Honey, if you did things differently then my feelings would have turned. I don't want t be showered with compliments and drown in a sea of roses. No, for what I want is blood rushing through my brain and heart beating faster because of excitement, not because of flattery."
That moment right there, he realized that she wasn't like any other girls. There's a fire blazing in her heart and fireworks exploding in her eyes, that is why he loved her. How stupid of him to treat her like any other.

Under the trees we danced
Around blue made fires
With love and unity
Entertained with flutes and moonlight stories
Dropping from the toothless mouth of our elders
Accompanied with Wise words and warnings
That we may not be blown by the wind
Or drenched by the rain
.
Soon,we became orphans
Left with no breast to ****
Fathers and mothers lost in battle
Against unceasing slumber
We are alone like an island surrounded
By waters of civilization
.
Now we are lost ,lost in ignorance
Our hands,not strong enough
To hold firm the calabash
Given to us by our dead
Filled up with warnings and wise words
So we lost it!
.
Our hen is pregnant
But claims the goat is responsible
We lack fountain
But beg for water
Our barns are full with yams
But we gnash our teeth in hunger
We have golds
But cry for stones
Our eyes are open
Yet,blind to behold
As the beauty of our rainbow unfolds.

Balogun Tolulopez Ayodeji David
(Drunk poet)
ANA AAUA chapter
2017

1.
i fear you more than i love you

2.
sometimes i wish you were dead so that i wouldn't have to leave you but i wouldn't have to live with you either

3.
i went to dinner with a friend you forbade me to see. when i hugged him, his body was neither as soft nor as warm as yours and i didn't like it very much. there was no ****** tension; only liberation, and deep, deep guilt.

4.
sometimes i lie to you about my phone being out of battery. it's on airplane mode because i need some time to myself and you don't like it when i ask for "alone time". why do you need alone time, you always ask. i don't know how to explain it to you anymore.

5.
i wish i had never met you because i am in a cycle of evil and fear and guilt and pain and sure some days you make me feel loved but mostly you just drive me insane. insane, not in the oh my gosh i'm so in love way but in the i don't know what's real anymore way.

6.
i feel weak because i am not strong enough to leave you.

7.
i feel strong because through it all, i have survived.

birds on barbed wire,
watching over me,
lodged in a private
penitentiary.

birds on barbed wire,
not a chirp or peep they make,
they just perch between the barbs,
watch, waiting, wait, watching me
shiver in silence, violence shake.

birds on barbed wire,
will neither spread wings,
or take flight,
these wire-bound birds
will not
leave me out of their sight;

-nor will any such
birds on barbed wire
call out or make cry,
these birds on the wire
are here to wait and watch me
just die.
___

birds, barbed wire:
http://beautyineverything.com/5082513864

You said, "The key to happiness is self preservation."
I don't think you know what happiness means.

Clearly, you've never kissed in the freezing rain.
Clearly you've never had *** in a stranger's pool in the middle of the night.
You've probably never had a midnight snowball fight without gloves or a jacket.
There's no way you've ever been on a roller coaster.
You've obviously never taken a punch for a friend.
I'll bet you've never taken the blame for something you're little sister did.
I'm sure you've never gone bike riding through a lightning storm.
And you've most certainly never been in love,
Or moved to a new city with nothing but a suitcase.
Or enlisted in the military.
Or driven into a terrifying part of town to rescue a drunk cousin.
Or committed a serious crime, or deployed a school prank.
Or road tripped to a college and gotten stupid drunk.
Or played tackle football on Thanksgiving with your older cousin's friends.
And you've **** sure never snuck out into the night,
or jumped into a fight for one of your friends.
And something tells me you know nothing of signing your life away for a cause greater than your own.
Have you ever gone paint balling? Or white water rafting?
Rock climbing? Street racing?
Have you ever played with fireworks?
Or shared a meal with a homeless person?
Didn't think so.
Have you ever played truth or dare? Probably not.
You've never quit your job to pursue a dream,
you've never rolled the dice of fate, knowing death could be as probable as life.
And you **** sure have never willingly given your self fully to another, to do with whatever they please, because without them you'll never be whole again.
And there's no way in Hell you've ever begged out into the darkness to trade your life with a family members, wishing to take their pain away and wear it like a trophy so they can be happy again.

You see, the key to HAPPINESS is LIFE.
The key to LIFE is being ALIVE.
And the preservation of the moments, and people that make you feel alive, that remind you how precious and beautiful being alive is.
And in order to feel alive, sometimes you have to put your life on the line, and live a little dangerously.
Sometimes that means not knowing where your life is gonna go.
Sometimes it means preserving someone else's life before you're own.
Because happiness is knowing your life is worth living.
Save your preservation for when you're dead.
By then it won't matter anyways.
But hey, what do I know?
You'll be a perfect corpse some day. Way prettier than mine.