To fit a different mold
Was your fondest wish
To have and hold

To be the red sore thumb
Forever clapping tongue

And every little child of the day
Will know you, Name and Face

And every little child of the day
Every muttering head of grey
Will know you, by Name and Face

Press, your hands against the glass
Your fingerprints upon the screen

Be, the flawless fantasy
As styles go from rough to clean

And every little dripping note of praise
Will be swept up in a haze
A halo, round your head

Every little dripping note of praise
Every passing latest craze
Will stoop and scrape
So far down low

Hold, your lock of famous hair
A dream you'll always keep

When, its more than you can bear
Out the window shout: I am unique

For the hardest part of living out the day
Finger bone and nose to stone

Is knowing

You are one of millions

And will never be alone

since i'm no one special
but just another wide-eyed girl
desperately falling in love with you

with my face that blend into the crowds
yelling your name as they reach out for you

and my words and rapid heartbeat
swallowed down by their screams

i can only hope you take at least
one look in my direction
and i'll take it as if you looked at me
like we were the only ones in that room

Its harder to relate
when your life becomes the stage
smoldering like the brightest pyre
to fizzle on a faded page
amongst monsters made of hands
emotions ignite a passion
bent to my reflections demands
in the most maddening fashion.
Calloused hands cant scratch it.
Unglued minds cant fake it.
All you can do is take it,
An hope to god they patch it.
Strung through the fields
where sanity ain't a concept.
Just smile for the audience
and spin it into gold.

An inspiration; my favorite author,
is the ever famous Anonymous

Here, now, is the world before me:
Women are struggling to make a living
And men struggling for beer.
The markets are full of drying-up warehouses
And market stalls pregnant with emptiness.

A woman comes in,
Calls the last goods on the shelf, indicating interest.
There are the dying smiles that echo no goodwill
Upon the naming of a price-below-purchasing;
There are the hungry laughters at the teeth of the buyer
Who seeks his own gains;
There are the welling-up tears that fill the eyes of the seller
Who needs the penny to live another day.

Poverty and want wears an ugly face
And gives hate a voice to echo its disdain.
Much displeasure fills the air but in business
The customer always wins.

Pain eats up my heart as I watch the transaction.
Here, survival matters- just as much as love,
But now even this is no more.
                                                      
                                                                                     Abacheke-Egbema, Imo State. January 2014

I’m a child and not a bride, but
Last month you made me marry you.
You know it wasn’t love that made me say yes
But the fear of what shape my death could take
If I were to turn you down. Of course
I had no voice. I could only muse to myself
In the dark closet and imagine myself
A mother at thirteen: would it be awesome?
Would it be dreadful? Would it…? I died of anxiety.

Last month you made me marry you.
I had no time to discover me for myself:
Who I was, what I was, what I wanted to be;
I had no time to think before I had to say yes.
But it pains my bones to the marrow.
I am an unripe fruit for the eating.
I am a piece for the show-glass.

Last month you made me marry you.
I spent nights upon nights weeping over how you’ve
Broken me; how you’ve set my life ablaze
Like a forest in a wildfire;
And now the once-upon-a-time sweet sounding music
Of my soul is burnt into silence.
I have forgotten the dialect of my soul.
I hush. I hush. I hush. I hush. I hush.
You have beaten silence into me,
And now I have to prepare to moan and wail
Beneath your weight, while I watch you helplessly
As you bite into my innocence,
As you suckle the un-ripeness out of me,
As you dig into my childhood and pleasure yourself
In the childhood screams you hear from me.
But it isn’t the fun that makes me scream.
It is the bitter pain of knowing, of remembering
That my life ended at thirteen:

Broken like a fallen calabash
In the hands of a fifty-five year old man.