Throbbing hearts and bleeding inks

Femur, tibia, scapula, carpals, metacarpals, phalanges, skull, I promised you my bones-your very own calcium-planked ancestor. But that was not enough, no. I was never enough for you. Maybe love is nothing but a myth, sang to the wifty ears of passers-by as they munch on their to-do lists, missing all the hidden notes in Cupid's score. So they say 'love is blind' without second thoughts. No wonder Cupid renovated his armoury, folding all his notes into arrows so he could drive them straight through our hearts-I was pinned down with two. Both pointing me to your direction. But for once, Cupid's GPS was misplaced. You didn't get the same memo. "He's only using me for target practice." I console myself time and time again. Now time is but an illusion, a flat loop of heartbreaking déjàvus. You don't get it do you? The hearts which men promise will not always be there to be witnesses to their love. It pales like the skin, like the rest of the organs...

Perspective is everything. It is beauty and sophistication at a get go. I have two batik artworks walled in my room. One is a drawing of six African ladies of which two carry baskets of fruits; three head a basket of bread loaves and the last, a calabash full of water. The other artwork is a drawing of Africa. Inside Africa, are ladies, African ladies. A few carrying baskets of fruits and land produce. Some carry calabashes full of water, while two, pound and drive fufu expertly. A cocoa tree also cuts through the North-West of Africa.  The few who observe, see the artworks. I happen to barge into a gentleman one evening as he looked on. "What do you see?" I asked. "Only a bunch of ladies carrying baskets of foodstuffs" he replied sharply. But they are Africans, their skin tone says it all. What happened to the cocoa tree, or even the ladies pounding the fufu? He didn't notice. On the left side of the first artwork, one lady is undoubtedly having a hard tim...

With arms stretched out Reaching for a clasp, Ready for a greeting, Amidst customed cheeks and contagious teethy smile, She named "Yaa". Thought it wasn't what I heard. Thought some foreigners exhausted their birth names and decided to go African. I bet she had rehearsed her name countless times in front of a mirror. I bet she had prepared so much so that she missed the part where the average Ghanaian was never a hearty shaker. She so was innocent. I could look at her all day, She was that beautiful. Never seen anyone mention their name with so much promise. She was Yaa, Yaa Ababio. The Yaa in Yaa Asantewaa- I've heard the name oodles of counts but this, This sounded alien to my buds. Like the taste of red wine to a tongue of palm wine- the tapper is left perplexed. Her accent betrayed her to the question, "Are you from around here?" But her aura welcomed her to the announcement, "We'll always be family...

I have had songs to sing, but no one to listen. I have poems to write, but no one to read. No shoulder to lay my bony head on for  soothing palms to rub my back and tell me that everything is going to be fine. The brights confuse the dim. Our stories, our stories are ink-written on our chests, boiled with clots of blood and appareled in tar. What happened to yesterday, where I could touch the clouds and wish for a unicorn's horn? What happened to the nights before days, where I could fetch myself a bite without gnashing on tall questionnaires of "What" and "Where"? Please don't fix me, just feel me. Taste my food, drink my water. Wear my cologne. Sit with me and hear me breathe before you straighten me up. Come on down to my motherlessness. Come on down to my gore and let's grab a cup of coffee from a muddy pool; ask me where my smile squeezes from. Ask me from whence do I laugh? Just ask me anything of me so you can add to the stunted archi...