P.O.V.ERTY

Sand for breakfast
Tasted no better than shit
I don’t beg for alms anymore
I just snatch it

My mother’s tears
Son I did not bring you up to be a thief
Mom you didn’t raise me to suffer in poverty, did you?
I just want some relief.

Sometimes they look out of their cars
Our eyes meet
I wonder if they ever wonder
If I know the taste of meat.

If I were in their shoes
Would I mean nothing to me
If driving by I saw me chained by poverty
In a system that benefits only me.

– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.

TRANSITION

What is adulthood
But childhood lost?

Shopping for arrival
But at what cost?

Goodbye because I want
Welcome because I must

Morning to ashes
Laughter to dust.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

JUSTICE
JUST IS
A SWORD
SOME WIELD
SOME YIELD

A WORD
ARBITRARY
CONTRARY
AND YET
SO ORDINARY.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

I saw a child
Waiting at a bus-stop
Waiting after school
Waiting in the woods.

Child, what are you
Waiting for?

I’m waiting for my mother
Waiting for my father
To come and pick me up
Take me home.

The child’s eyes
Were wide and trusting
Full of hopes and questions
And fears.

And the child said
With pleading eyes:
I really should not speak
To strangers.

The years have passed
And now when I pass by
I see a quiet adult standing there,
Smiling, detached, lonely.

And I wonder
Whatever happened to that child?

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.