IT'S A GAME

All of a sudden I don’t want to wait.

Wait for another one of your blows

Self preservation is a powerful incentive.

When did I become selfish?

Does it mean that love is lost?

I don’t want to give up what love has offered me all these years.

A chance to be a true daughter of my Father.

But this hurdle, I refuse to cross.

You can’t make me!

I won’t let you!

You put it there!

Now we must all suffer for it.

I’m not bailing you out this time.

It’s the perfect set-up for the ‘they all lived happily ever after’

I have been after all these years.

Just separate forevers, but we will make do.

A love that doesn’t hurt?

I scoff!

That only happens when there is no ego.

And we’ve got plenty, you and I.

The extremists of selfishness and selflessness are the hopeless.

They have nothing to lose.

But we have each other to lose.

We just don’t care.

You never did, and now I don’t too.

Careful, lest the student becomes more than the master.

A girl can take just this much,

Even when she is having fun.

Even if nobody understands this, I know you will.

You always do.

One of the things I love about you.

YOU DESERVE BETTER

A chance to breathe.

Just a breath of fresh air.

I’ve grown tired of you already.

I tried to pull you out and ended up hurting my soil.

When did you grow such deep roots?

It is not enough that you’ve burrowed deep enough to draw tears.

Must you suffocate me with how far your vines reach?

You deserve better.

I deserve better.

We owe it to each other.

It is not you, it’s me,

I am tempted to say.

Except it is a hated sentence,

And you really deserve better.

When you asked for my key I sent you out to chase shadows.

All the while, I had the key close to that which it must open.

And why not?

Your brother made me this way.

I realize now that you are not your brother.

And also that you deserve better.

When these tears dry off your cheeks,

Will you please find it in that precious gem of yours,

To forgive me.

Love, always.

MORTAR & PESTLE

Thank God for manicures and pedicures!

Wait oh! The mortar and the pestle have neither.

But Auntie Abena with her knife and silver shine will have to do.

Call me when our adored meal is done.

My throat will feel no calluses in swallowing.

Kwasi Broni’s burgers and fries,

You were fun for the ride.

But my mama’s fufu and aponkye soup,

Will no lasagna rival.

DRY BONES SMILE

Grandmother is on the streets hawking her wares.

She is a witch, probably; it is whispered.

Senility is not hard of hearing.

Where is the glory of motherhood?

When were the bonds between mother and children severed?

How is it that the one whose breast we could never have enough of,

 Is now the one whose face we could scarcely have time for?

Where is the honour so ranted about?

As we look through the telescope of our days seemingly growing wider,

She looks back from the other side and sees her time growing smaller.

Let us learn the lessons we ought from him who regrets losing his mother’s bosom.

Let us crown our mother with the smile only her children can put on her face.

LONE WOLF

We are the best.

Yes, we are.

We are because the worst is best at being the worst.

No matter how best we are, we need the worst to make us look best.

A lone tree never did a forest make.

Little drops of water may make an ocean,

But a drop of water never made a brook alone.

Being an island is an excellent idea if you can be the worst to your best.

Even an island is nothing without the waters worshiping at its feet.

The best we aspire to, the worst we shy from.

The worst our bane, the bane we may appreciate.