Truth is so powerful. There is almost nothing That you cannot forgive a truthful person. It’s a strange phenomenon. What is hurting You is healing you, is teaching you a lesson. Even while suffering, you can’t stop trusting. Something about them awakens respect in us. Truthful people fascinate the coward in us, Inspire the warrior in us, touch the human in us. In the depth of their sin, yet they carry the cross. Even at their worst, they’re still the best of us. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
Be yourself
FIGHTING AS YOURSELF
You fight by being yourself You lose by losing yourself You win by remaining yourself Improving yourself, perfecting yourself As yourself Your deepest and highest and purest self. When you‘re not good enough for someone Don’t respond by becoming someone else Stay quietly yourself, your authentic self - When you’re too good to be true in someone’s view Don’t adjust and lower yourself to their comfort level Stay proudly yourself, your honest self - Just strive to be the best version of yourself. You can only attract those in tune with yourself When you show yourself - And if they are few and far between It’s still worth is. The loneliness is mean Crushing and worse when you’re not yourself. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
LAST LAST
Don’t try to make it straight and neat
Just simply try to make it complete
Do it all, everything, big and small,
Pride, they say, goes before a fall
So don’t freeze because you’re imperfect
For that’s just pride – so, check it.
Speak your mind even if with a shaky voice
If you can’t be quiet, make noise
If you don’t know who your true love is
Love them all who pull your heart’s strings
Change your path if need be
As often as you need in order to see
Follow your heart’s desires fully and truly
Even if you don’t know how to do it
Last last just do it anyhow any which way
Nwanne, live your life like say na play
Because, my G, nothing serious for dis world
Apart from di peace of your soul.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
DON’T LOSE YOURSELF IN THE CROWD
Never join the crowd Let your silence be loud - Never yield to the crowd Let your humility be proud - The opinion of the crowd Is a blindfold, a shroud - We’re all parts of a crowd, But each with a spirit endowed. Don’t lose yourself in the crowd Because when you were allowed To come into being, you vowed To become an individual, unbowed. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW
If you want to know if people love you, strip yourself of all lustre, rizz and fanfare, like the trees shed their leaves in autumn, so naturalness lays the human heart bare. If you want to know if people accept you, be yourself right from the very start, not from the middle and not at the end, your truth will expose the truth in their heart. If you want to be free of pressure in your life, tell people your truth as early as you can; once they know and accept you as you are, you can then live freely as your own human. If you want to know how you really are, remove your mask and exhibit your true self. From people’s reactions over time you will honestly know whether to change, or to continue to be, yourself. Che Chidi Chukwumerije
BEING GENUINE
A foolish student
Will one day become a wise teacher
An unyielding sinner
Will one day become a moving preacher
The gap that yawns in you today
Will be filled by the pain of growth
Perfection and Imperfection may look like opposites
But when they arise in you, embrace them both
Because you don’t know which is which
Who is really poor and who is really rich.
– che chidi chukwumerije.
AFTER YOU’RE GONE
Footprints on sand
What is the proof that you ever lived?
What is record of self?
What is confirmation of identity?
Passport? No. Insufficient.
Fingerprints? No. Mute.
You. Spirit. Spirit is evidence.
Speak your mind before you die.
Character. Be yourself.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
EASY NOW
I see only nothing –
Emptiness has suffocated the world.
Hollowness on the inside…
Bring yourself to the fore
And stop hiding like a scared animal
In the darkness of your fear of societal assumptions.
Stop being a learned act on the stage of life –
Stop being a masquerade in the market-place of shared dreams…
Be yourself!
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
FAKE DOORS
If you’re a wall
Don’t pretend to be a door
Or promise me a window
Stand tall to your word
So I can lean on you
When I’m feeling trapped
Gasping for air, seeking light
Don’t let me come running to you
Thinking you will open
I will hate you forever
But, more than that,
My trust will grow wings and fly away.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
BE YOU
All I can do
Is just sing my songs
Between currents of dawn
I am a tree
The Iroko said to the ground
I cannot be grass too
Nor wind that comes and goes
And sings with birds and scents
And distant tales.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 