Let the bloody bougainvillea
Weight not down your heavy-laden shoulders
With the multitude of its crimson little hearts
For beauty can be a burden
When ugliness is your desire
Your ardent craving – throbbing need.

Remember those nights
When you were the night and the night
Was the restless insomniac
And you threw the petals of the rose away
And yearned for the thorns instead
And the thorn was your rose.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.