Of Conflict

REAFFIRMING DIGNITY

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

When a woman leaves a man who loves her to follow a man of money, it is the most crushing pain a man can feel. But if he does not let it kill him, it will only liberate him in the end. Every once in a while you have a chance to look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself “I am somebody”. Something will push you there. Something that seems aimed at robbing you of your dignity, your pride, your self-respect. Something that will try to tie your actual value as a human being to some material status or achievement or level of acceptance by someone or some people. Something that will make you feel small. And nothing does this deeper than love that chooses money over you. Then you have to stand in front of the mirror and look into the soul of that man staring back at you and recognise his true value. Remind yourself of the principles at the core of your foundations as a Human Being. Remind yourself of what connects you to God and to true life. And teach yourself again that your value is more than your monetary wealth or material standing. And don’t allow anyone to tell you otherwise – not any man and not any woman. Because, In Your Dignity, You Are Somebody.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains

DON’T GET LOST IN THE DARK

~ Che ~ Leave a comment 
Don’t get lost in the dark
Wait for the mist to clear
The emotions never speak the truth
They are always informed and biased by feelings
You just have to wait for the mist to clear
It takes a shorter or longer time to pass
Depending on your nature
And depending on the circumstances
Just don’t get lost in the dark.

Azuka Chukwumerije

LOVE AND PAIN

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

Why is there so much hurt in this world? Why is it hard for people to join hearts without causing each other pain? Why is pain an unavoidable component of love and of togetherness? Is the human spirit really incapable of honest, pure, harmonious, mature love?

The people that love you are the people you will hurt, and they are the people that will hurt you the deepest and the most. And yet you cannot stop loving and you cannot stop loving them. Nor they you.

Who has ever found happiness on earth without it being laced with anguish and spiked with periodic doses of lacerating pain? If you haven’t found this, then you’ve never felt love yet. Because you can never find the love without the pain.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains

FIGHT FOR IT

~ Che ~ Leave a comment 
You have to fight to be free -
True freedom, inner freedom -
Fight your fears and anxiety,
The chains of your inner fiefdom;
Fight your propensity and proclivity
For weakening pleasure ;
Fight your despondency
And fight your insecurity
With courageous Hope in equal measure.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

MY PATH

~ Che ~ Leave a comment 
I‘m just on my lonely path
But very few people know
And even those that know
Still don’t really know
Because how can you know
What I don’t truly show?
The nature of my sorrow
The depth of my flow
For I still have many miles to go
In my search for tomorrow
And only I truly know
The loneliness of my path.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

SELF-CONTROL

~ Che ~ Leave a comment 
There are some you don’t take,
Even when they make themselves available,
For heaven’s and your dignity‘s sake -
Pleasure today will tomorrow be regrettable.

The line you draw will be your lifeline,
A line as high and thick as it is invisible and fine.
The gap you maintain will maintain your pride;
If you cross it, shame will become the great divide.

Some things it’s better not to do,
Not because of what you’ll gain or not gain,
But because of what it will take from you;
It can’t be repaired by even the deepest pain.

Honour makes a nation
And integrity makes a state -
The day you learn to resist temptation
Is the day you become great.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

I DREAM EVERY TIME I FALL ASLEEP

~ Che ~ Leave a comment 
I dream every time I fall asleep
And it’s always one adventure or the other;
Conversations with beloveds I keep,
My best friend, my father, my brother,
And strangers too with whom I laugh and weep
And fight and love and comfort one another;
The dangers are real, the emotions are deep,
Every fear, every tear, every worry and bother;
At times I weightless fly, or I burdened creep,
Through encounters that liberate or smother,
But I’m always conscious even in the Deep,
As awake as a baby born out of its mother.
For I have vows to keep and sowed seeds to reap -
And before it gets lighter it will get darker -
And miles to go and never really sleep.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

HURT

~ Che ~ 1 Comment 
Love hurts.
Life hurts.
People hurt.
People hurt people.
And hurt people hurt people.

And when it hurts too much
People begin to avoid the touch
The inner touch
Sometimes they permit the outer touch
But only perfunctorily as such
Because even it hurts too much.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

TRUST, BROKEN

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Trust, broken.
Thoughts, woken.
Hurt, spoken.
Touch, token.

Unpreparable.
It comes from the one you don’t expect.
Unrepairable.
You’ll never again be able to not suspect.

Healing is an intellectual token
Once the trust has been broken.
Only the spirit can find a new rhyme
In its own way, in its own time.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

VANISHING

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Don’t come back after I’ve got used to your absence
Your absence has become your strongest presence
If you return too late you’ll only find yourself gone
Replaced by memory, you’ll be the invisible one.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river