YOU

No one else but you -
Is this magic? Is this juju?
There is value in virtue
More powerful than voodoo.
No one else but you
I just had to woo you
And once I sort of knew you
I just had to do you.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

TREASURE IT

When someone loves you
Really loves you
Treasure it above due
It is worth much more than you know

Lack of love is poverty too
Lack of joy and companionship too -
Treasure love above due
It is worth much more than you know.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

EVERYONE CAN BE HAPPY

There is somebody that loves you genuinely; 
May you find that person -
And may you also love that person genuinely.
But if you don’t find or love that person,
Still may you find happiness in life.
Not everyone finds a husband or a wife,
But everyone can be happy genuinely.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

A LITTLE HAPPY EVERYDAY

Sometimes you love someone, but the person loves someone else. Or the person simply prefers a lifestyle different from the one which a life with you would have to offer them. So they choose or go after someone else who, or another path that, can offer them that lifestyle.

Being that the aim, the very aim, of life itself is Happiness, this experience of rejection cuts to the very heart of the essence of existence. The hurt can kill the soul. It makes people reappraise themselves, question their worth and even find fault in their own fundamental character. Yet, while self-examination is healthy, so also are self-love, self-understanding and self-acceptance equally necessary.

When trapped in a spiral of self-abnegation in which one no longer recognises oneself, It then becomes imperative to awaken, within one’s consciousness, a new narrative of life and of self in order to find the path to a new source of joy, as a new person. To outgrow the self-image that traps one in a cycle of pain, perhaps even to shed certain traits, and to learn to see oneself, one’s path and one’s Why with fresh new eyes. To find a new understanding of the purpose of life.

This is where the concept of never giving up comes into play. Every morning when you wake up, strive for joy. Be prepared to let go of those thoughts and those beliefs that weigh you down debilitatingly. Be ready and able every day to try a new path, a new thought, until you find the exit – and then you can take flight again.

Life is a jigsaw puzzle. Many parts fit, but many parts don’t fit also. And you have to move the pieces about in your heart and in your life continuously, often, and courageously in order to slowly put your answers together.

And, as you stride on along this way, try… try to be a little happy every day. In the end, that’s all you have. That’s all we have to share with one another. That is our humanity.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains

VANISHING

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

LOVE IS REAL

Love is real
And rare
And it’s a big deal
In here
Where we feel
And care
And hurt and heal
And share.

To steal the heart
Is to seal the heart
And throw the key away
Forever minus a day.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

LOVE HURTS

If love hasn’t driven you mad
Then you’ve never felt love before
If love hasn’t made you unbearably sad
Then love has not yet pierced your core
If love hasn’t tested the line you had
Between the good and the bad
and fundamentally changed you forevermore,
Then yours isn’t love, just a lore.

And the most astounding part
Is the dull ache somewhere in your heart
and the cold ashes that remain
when you walk down memory lane.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

THE LOVE MIRROR

Mirror mirror on the wall -
Who‘s the fairest of them all?

Mirror mirror, as they fall -
Who’s the dearest of them all?

Mirror mirror, hear them call -
Who’s the nearest of them all?

Mirror mirror, it is dull -
Who’s the clearest of them all?

The eyes are the window of the soul
And the mirror of the world within -
Mirror my soul, picture me whole,
Let me come in and let love begin.

Mirror mirror on the wall,
Who’s the surest of them all?

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

ALL BECAUSE OF LOVE

We make mistakes
And mistakes make us
Who we are
This is who we are

We make decisions
And decisions make us
What we are
This is what we are

We make friends
And friends make us
How we are
This is how we are

We make love
And love makes us
Why we are
This is why we are.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

UNCONTROLLABLE LOVE

If you can control love
Then you’ve never felt love

Love is stronger than the human spirit
The transformation of the soul, love did it

Love will waylay you
and disobey you
Love will take you and make you
and break you and remake you
in its own image.

And knows better than you
What it wants to go with you
Presage.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river