Angie Nwokedi - My Heart On your Sleeve

Starry skies, summer vibes

Breathing lightly, smiling wide,

He comes to me, I stop him fast.

Love untrue, love, not you

Love, I knew

Love.

I move to strike

I move for pain.

I slap, I hit, I kick,

For love has left my clique

But then you say you love me

But I know my love no more

You smile and I glimpse my heart on your sleeve

And then I know

I feel like im under oath, just not to you.

I breath, I cry, I loved.

I will feel the pain

I will feel the hurt

But I will not feel love

Because love is cheating, cheating on him, cheating with you.

I will not feel love because I have loved and it was taken.

Love was stabbed in the back with a scared mans knife

Love was left to bleed, love was left untended

Cold, alone, dying, then dead.

So, impossibility comes to mind, when I see my heart plastered,

plastered and strewn on your sleeve

On your sleeve my hear t resides

But my heart died

Died with the love I had on the other side.

Why is my heart on your sleeve, when it was long dead and buried?

How is my heart on your sleeve, when I never wore it on my own?

When did my heart reach your wrist? I see it dangling close to your hip and I ask you how?

You say to me;

“It is on my sleeve because you refuse to carry it in your chest.”

The love of Adam by Eve was strong, relentless,

Nevertheless, she caused his death.

I stand as bearer of bad news, regina of regret.

Danger.

My heart belongs to someone else, now stolen by another

I buried my heart with the man that I loved, so how is it on your sleeve?

I should steal it back but you guard it.

So I slap you, hit you, kick you,

Then I kiss you, miss you, love you.

I reach the end, our silvers grey

Our children live and walk astray.

They say “mother, why is your silver always grey?”

And I say to them,

A long time ago, the man who had my heart was buried,

And I buried my heart with him.

But then a man stole my heart and I loved him, married him

But now, that man that died, that man I buried, that took my heart the first time,

Is on my mind

And your father, the thief, the one who cheated me out of my first love,

Is wandering, scamming and lying,

Showing others the same heart he showed me

Now I’m here, alone with you, thinking of the man I buried

And now I realize that he never relinquished my heart,

He kept it safe, protected, with our memories, while I fell for a scam artist with a heart on his sleeve.

One day, my hearts protector I will see again

My knees will graze gravel and my eyes caress rubble as I think of how to beg forgiveness.

For I allowed myself be scammed, scammed for the easy, scammed for the light.

Scammed because I thought I had more than one life.

The truth is, when I buried my heart , I should have trusted it to stay under,

Stay in limbo, stay unknown.

But I believed instead, in fairy tale.

Believed that Cinderella found her prince, that Rapunzel’s hair set her free,

that snow white survived the apple.

Seyi Ezikiboy Noibi - Regular Girl

We Were Regularly On And Off So I Got Used To The Lights Being On Full Blast & Then Suddenly Our Wires Would Cross & Short Circuit The Fuse & All There'd Be Was A Blackout.Then It Got Irregular No More Texts & Calls Blowing Up My Cellular I Tried To Message Her But All I Got Was 'Duck Out' So I'd Act Out Then We'd Repeat The Process.Regular Girl Living In My Regular World Where The Lights Flicker Everytime I’m With Her They Can Spontaneously Combust & Send Our Starry Eyes Shooting Off Like Fireworks Into The Night Or Just Fade & Get Dimmer Fading Into Dust Till There’s No More Light Just A Jammed Off Switch.Back To The Irregular Set Up I Wonder Sometimes Why I Put Myself Through This Uno Choosing To Be Foolish & Stay Where Consistently Isn’t A Game We’re Too Familiar With Playing We’re More Interested In Tank Music That ‘Sex,Almost Love & Pain’ Emphasis On The Almost Cuz I Can Just About Get U To Keep The Lights Glowing But Then When The Going Gets Tough & Crack Starts Showing U Cave Into The Pressure & Retreat Into Ur Cave Ur Lair & As Much As I Try To Illuminate Whats Inside There I’m Stuck In The Darkness Where Irregularities Is All I Can Get To Answer To My Screams For Intimacy.Regular Girl,We’re Back Here Again.On & Off.Hot & Cold.Yes & No.Here & Gone.Boomerang,U Come & Then U Vanish But I Sure As Hell Hope U Come Back.Hoping,Yeah I Guess You Could Say I’m A Glutton For This Type Of Loving.Regular Break Ups & Makes Ups,Not Knowing Whether I’ll Wake Up Next To U Or U’ll Take Up Another Guy So I’ll Just Be Stuck Missing U On Loop Like A Sad Love Song & I’m Broken Hearted Just Tryna Get By.Why Does This Predictable Instability Have To Persist We Could Just Firmly Place Both Hands On The Light Switch & Turn On Instead Of Getting Turned On & Then Turned Off I Don’t Know How Much Longer I Can Handle This Being On Rocky Ground Treating Our Everyday Like Its Fragile A Piece Of China & If Earthquakes Disturb Our Peace & Volcanoes Erupt That Force Us Away From Ground & Into The Sea I Don’t Think It’ll Be Long Before We Drown We’ve Run Out Of Earth To Cover & We’ve Become Our Own Enemies.Friends To Lovers & Then Back Again & Again & Again Its Become Routine So Back & Forth I Think Messages Have Been Telling Us We’re Not Right For Each Other But We Refuse To Listen Till Regular Girl We Finally Become Permanently Irregular.Not Blacked Out But Knocked Out.A Number In Love’s Mortuary....

FEATURE - PERRE SHELTON (Dandelions)

Untitled - by Bukola Epiphany Rose

This is a short piece written by another young and talented poet who goes by the name of Bukola. I told Bukola I wanted a piece from her for my blog and within a few minutes she gave me this freestyle straight from the heart, I was Impressed....

If I could capture his essence I would capture his love.

First I'd start by tangling my heart in the midst of his mind,

and drag it through the deeply buried thoughts.

We'd voyage down the opening of it passively,

embracing each n every last one of my burning desires.

First I'd allow him to fore play with my fore thoughts,

and keep me essembled with stolen pictures of his glazed lips,

smooth skin and alluring eyes.

With his mother tongue he'd caress cages of my soul,

and break free the chains of my past hurt, my past love.

Bukola Amaris Epiphany Rose

Voice of A City

The winds cool breath swept through the barren streets,

On either side concrete estates stood guard like sentinels,

Their grey complexions mute the ‘would be’ voice of the scenery.

If you listen closely you can hear stories echoed through the alleyways,

Round the corner and into the streets.

Listen, can you hear it?

Amidst the fear inducing beat of the police sirens,

Resides the voices of a Couple,

Engaged in the type of conversation you would expect from lovers lost in lust,

Their eyes never leave each other,

Yet their feet guide them in the right direction,

Floating across the ground their footsteps are as light as their hearts,

Ever so suddenly their movement ceases.

Their eyes reflect the moonlit sky.

His loving grip tightens on her palms,

Which respond accordingly,

In that moment of time,

Their heartbeats play the backing track to the city’s song,

A track that plays on,

Until,

A gunshot decides to add its vocals,

Vocals so out of pitch and tempo that they break his heart beat,

Hers plays on, evermore sonorous its tempo quickens,

Her wails and screams now take centre stage.

Thoroughly encouraged by the round of applause given by the moonlit skies,

Reflected in his lifeless eyes

The sirens return, the performance becomes a duet.

As they drag her away, her voices pierces the decibel barrier...

...and becomes silent...the colour drains away from the picture.

The grayscale theme now returns,

Along with the silence,

Another chapter is added to the story of these streets,

If you listen close maybe you will hear them

FXL