WRONG AND RIGHT

How can something so strong
be so wrong? Go so wrong?
We don’t belong to our emotions,
they belong to us, but our devotions
are more accurate and honest,
what we long for the strongest.
Pain brings so much blessing
to every soul that learns its lesson
and undergoes transformation,
maturation and the realisation
that it wasn’t wrong after all,
it was a strong and jarring Call
to wake up before you fall.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

LOVE IS A PRISON

My only Crime was loving you
And loving you too much too
But If this is a crime
I’ve done my time
Release me
Ease me
Out
Tell me what it’s all about
An outer whisper, an inner shout
Free me from insecurity and doubt.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

FORGET IT

How humility can guide you
To find yourself if you let it -
How anger can ride you 
To death if you won’t forget it -

Forget it, it’s done and gone,
Your pain is the healing kind -
When you lost her, you won
A deeper heart, a higher mind.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

HEARTS NEED TIME

The heart needs a long time
To understand that someone is gone.
Decades after the death bells chime,
The heart still waits for the loved one
To come back home.

The heart needs a long time
Because hearts are built for eternity.
Loving is more violent than crime,
You’ll be sentenced to immortality
As you wander and roam
Trying to come back home.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

REPEAT

It’s like 10,000 years away
It’s like you went away
On that fateful day
It repeats itself everyday.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

THAT KIND OF LOVE

How can someone
Love someone so much?
Is it possible? Once upon
A time there was such.

And betrayal couldn’t make the love go away,
It only opened a wound that would forever stay
And questions yearning to find answers some day.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

EVENING BLUES

Accept your loss
Only God is the boss
Many rivers to cross
To get to the real Us

What a quiet evening you are
Your inner voice carries far
Riding quietly in the back of the car
My listening heart is ajar.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

UNTIL IT HAPPENS

You think it matters
Until it happens
And then you realise
It doesn’t really matter

You think it kills
Until it happens
And then you realise
It only hurts for a while
And then it disappears.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

SUDDEN JOLTS

I cry spontaneous tears
They come unbidden
Rolling back adult years
All of a sudden
The wounds, the tears
A shuddering bolt
And a painful spasm
Of old fears and new cares
That repeatedly scars
Anew my heart with a volt
Of shivering behind cold
Iron intangible bars
A body-wracking jolt
And then the next moment
I quietly laugh again
Grateful and content
To reap my fruits in pain
I don’t know when
The tears will come again
At 2 o’clock or at 10
In a meeting, at a game, or on a plane
Or taking a walk in the friend zone
Or sitting at home all alone.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

REAFFIRMING DIGNITY

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