regret

JUST ONCE

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

There are things that other people can do a hundred times and get away with it. But if you do it just once, you will get caught or it will stay with you for the rest of your life. If another person doesn’t catch you, your conscience catches you and makes you pay for it from that moment until the day you die. To stop it you’ll have to kill your conscience, in which case you die a deeper death. So, in order to live, you have to live with it. You have no choice but to bear it and mature through it. Just for something you did just once.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains

THE GAMES WE PLAY

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

These games that we play, and think it’s just fun, they can really damage people. And by the time we start to suspect the damage we have done and start to pull back, it’s already too late and the victims are left reeling and wounded for the rest of their lives or for a very long time afterwards. These games of hearts, of love and sex, and of adventures, of selfish desires and of fun.

Sometimes we think we’re just expressing ourselves, or just seeking the meaning of life, or just getting out of life everything that it has to offer, or just doing what “everybody else” does, or just living life to the full, or just making sure we don’t die one day with regrets in our hearts of the things we left undone, or simply assuaging our own personal propensities, or even getting back at someone, or maybe trying to experience for ourselves how something feels, or just having some harmless fun.

I used to think that the things I would one day regret the most are the things I left undone, the opportunities I missed because I did not try to get them. But now I realise that the pain and regret that comes from doing certain things is even worse, and is real, and stays with you. You can’t run away from them because it is real and something you actually did. And all the apologies in the world has not made them go away. The only consolation, if any, is that your heart has learned a deep lesson that should, hopefully, make you a better person for the rest of this life and also in your subsequent reincarnations on Earth. Hearts hurt for a very long time.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains

LIKE A CLOUD WATCHES A RAIN DROP FALL

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

Like a cloud watches a rain drop fall
An archer a misguided arrow reject recall
A mountain an avalanche gather and roll
A doctor a young departing soul
An old woman the memory of early innocent flirt
A tailor a beloved yarn vanish into a shirt
So I remember tonight all those I ever hurt –
Growing up is life’s only comfort.

– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.

LOVE THOSE YOU HAVE TODAY

~ Che ~ 2 Comments

So, your enemy
Disguised as a friend
Separated you from
Your real friend, in the end.

Well, it’s all good, it’s all good
Wear not regret as a crown of thorns
Love those you have today.

What use is the morning’s advice
If you understand it only in the evening,
When it’s too late
You think?
The day is already gone

Well, it’s all good, it’s all good
Love the night too
The moon is a growing sun.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

REGRET IS SWEETEST AT NIGHT

~ Che ~ 2 Comments

See there, a stream
It flows only at night
How can this be?
Who melted my frozen pride?

Who taught me how to cry
When the night is singing?
The book of my life
The pages start revealing

Every petal of blossoming pain
The seed was mine, I broke the ground
And sealed it over with a pound of pride
Not a drop of remorse

Or so I thought.
Yet see, there, a stream
It flows at night in my loneliness
Pride thaws and falls like rains of regret.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

TWO URGES

~ Che ~ 6 Comments

When the sun comes up
You will regret the night
For the world is ruled by two strangers
And they both live in you

The night awakens one stranger
Seducer, traitor, philosopher, poet
Broken hearts heal sweet wounds
Everything is allowed

Illusion. When the sun comes up
The strangers change places
You cannot undo the night

You can only regret it
Or secretly savour the memory
Of it.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

TENDERLY

~ Che ~ 3 Comments

I hold you tenderly
Like a precious thought
I sparingly share
Only with strangers

For they know not its worth
Will not rob me of it or its meaning or
Crush it to death like a writer
Crushes an idea in his mind –

Might be a butterfly
Might be a petal
Might be a story that would have changed minds –
Gone, unwritten, unspoken, unshared.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

REGRET AND HOPE

~ Che ~ 9 Comments

I sat under a tree
Waiting for me
To come back to me

And while I was there
Two friends came to share
With me their hope and fear

A couple healthy and young
Who for long did long
To right a secret wrong

Early in their union
Confused they had given
A baby away for adoption.

And now though they try
And love and long and cry
The womb stays barren and dry

They’ve traced now doggedly
And found the family
Where their child grows happily

Today from afar
They saw them pass in a car
Saw how happy they are

Then sadly, quietly
They walked to the tree
Where I sat waiting for me.

And so did we three
Reflect thoughtfully
On history and destiny

And then we took heart
Upped and did depart
With courage and hope in our hearts.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

UPON MY WORD

~ Che ~ 2 Comments

The pen is mightier
Than the sword
If only writers knew
The meaning of this word
Going forward, going backward

Those who seek vengeance
Through the use of the pen
Are writing their own sentence
Regret won’t heal the pain

Regret won’t heal the pain
My friend
So tread lightly in the rain
And softly sing

And softly sing
For when the verse is over
You’ll be the one to compose again
A new chorus to start over

And when you live again
Your life will be a book of stories
And everything you wrote
Will line your path with pain
Or shame or gladness or glory.

Some kill themselves by the sword
But most commit suicide by their own word.
Some live by the sword,
SOme die by the word
And vice versa.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

BUT YOUR HEART WILL FIND ITS PLACE OF PEACE

~ Che ~ 12 Comments

Where are we rushing to?
Death is waiting at the end anyway
Go there slowly
Enjoy the ride
Take long looks out of the window
Drink in the sunshine
Drown the moon in your soul and laugh
Out loud
Let the passing flower and
The passing cloud leave an impression
Upon your memory.
Pain is our ally when we look for love.

Remember, you will make mistakes
You will hurt the people you love
And they will hurt you back
And Regret will not heal the wounds
Or make anything better
Only worse
But your heart will find its place of peace
Someday
Somewhere
Somehow
Because I love you.
Even when I’m dying, still I love you to the end.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.