If love hasn’t driven you mad
Then you’ve never felt love before
If love hasn’t made you unbearably sad
Then love has not yet pierced your core
If love hasn’t tested the line you had
Between the good and the bad
and fundamentally changed you forevermore,
Then yours isn’t love, just a lore.

And the most astounding part
Is the dull ache somewhere in your heart
and the cold ashes that remain
when you walk down memory lane.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river