THE TRAIN WILL DEPART

The Train will depart
It will move
If you’re on it, you’ll leave the station behind
If you’re on the platform, it will leave you behind
But when the time comes the train will depart
And two people who’ve
Until that moment been together will part.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

LOVE LIKE THE SUN

Like the sun rises every morning
So love blossoms again in the heart
After the night of agony and mourning
The heart will ache to make a new start

It might be an unfinished story
Rising from the depth to try again
Or a new love emerging in all its glory
Making the heart forget all its past pain

The edges blur, the points blunt
The longing subsides, the tears dry
New edges sharpen up a new front
New wings unfold straining to fly

For the heart wants to love badly
Because love is the life of the soul
Love gladly or love sadly or love madly
Love alone makes the spirit whole.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

A NEW BEGINNING

A beautiful day,
My heart opens in joy and gratitude
And begins to pray:
Thank You, Lord, for healing, for fortitude,
For blessing my way
With true friends and a heart of quietude,
For sending Your Ray
Of warmth into the depth of my solitude.

Although I lost my woman
I gained new friends and a reopened heart.
With pain grows acumen;
Life is a journey, Your Word is the Chart.
It’s hard to be a true man
But every new day is a good day to start.
Daily You make me human,
moulding through experiences my innermost part.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

RECALIBRATED

When you‘ve lost
What you love the most
You have nothing more to lose.

When what gives you strength
Leaves you
Then you have only yourself left to choose.

And your God. And seriousness.
No more half-bonds.
Whatever stays must really be your crew’s.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

THE DULL ACHE

It is a healed wound
Or healing
While it yet crooned
I was feeling
You did your worst
To my inner child
Eligwe did burst
Sanctuary defiled.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

DEFLATION

It‘s a strange feeling when you stop caring;
You look for it inside you, it’s no longer there.
The heart grows cold and stops sharing,
And lies overtake the spirit of truth or dare.
It’s a strange feeling when you stop fearing
To lose what you love the most to have near.

What has freed you leaves you feeling empty;
The answers are few, the questions are plenty;
But the urge to know has suddenly died recently. -

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

LOVE HARDER, LOVE INTENSELY

When we have been hurt once, we make the mistake of shielding our hearts from loving again or loving too deeply the next time. This is very wrong. This is allowing the darkness to win against the light. The right thing to do is the opposite. Love hard, hurt hard, stand up, heal, fall hard again and love even harder. Next time, love HARDER. The only thing that can heal a broken heart is complete re-immersion into the intensity of love. Only intense love can dispel the spectre of the fear of love. Because it touches the core of the spirit and makes it know it is alive.

The nature of intense love is that, if your heart gets broken, it takes a long time to fall out of it and to heal, once you have given your heart and your trust and your openness to someone. Depth does not permit superficiality. Intensity does not permit an easy withdrawal or a quick transition. If you love hard, moving on will be very hard. But once you’re gone, looking back or coming back will also be very hard, because you are also going to fall hard into the next one. True love is intense, because only intensity is satisfying and fulfilling. Intensity is an addictive drug.

And nothing is more intense than the intimacy of shared truthfulness. Not even sex is an intimate as the sharing of truth and trust. A person who cannot share their truth with you, or who you cannot share your truth with, is inwardly distant from you. You will never have an intense intimate relationship with this person. The bond with this person will not be deep and satisfying. The pains will not be deep, neither will the joys. Moving on for or from such a person will be quick and easy. But your emptiness will not be filled.

If you want your emptiness to be filled, you have to have the courage to open your heart and fall fully, give yourself fully, share deeply and honestly, and love hard. Love HARDER. It comes with the risk and certainty of pain, but also of the deepest joy and satisfaction possible. And, above all, it is one of the only few things on earth that can really change a human spirit and help it to mature and develop. Because it touches your core and makes you even more alive.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains

IT IS WHY WE LIVE

It doesn’t matter who broke your heart
Or how badly they broke it.
It doesn’t matter how much it hurt.
When the new one comes,
Love again. And love HARDER.

Once you set off, don’t look back.
Pain is not and is never our master.
Joy and love lie always ahead -
Fall forward. It is why we live
With the fullness of our heart always to give.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

YOU WERE

You were
A different world
A different time
A different song
That did not rhyme

You were
A passing thought
A passing glance
A passing shot
Without a chance.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

I WISH YOU WELL

Though you hurt me
I wish you well
I pray that true love
Lift you where you fell
I pray that God’s Light
Illuminates your heart
I pray that good things
Line up your travel chart
And may it be well with you
In everything that you do.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river