Life is Beautiful as it is,
But overwhelming is it complicity,
Yet Mystery is it simplicity,
Perhaps should gets Sweeter,
But it gets Harder,
Confusion, Chaos and Casualties,
Became the Order of the Day,
From Tug of War,
To Clash of Titans,
While Time is Ticking,
Who Could Dare to Know Tomorrow,
For the Future lies with Nobody,
Nor the Past Redeemable,
For All Are Predestined.
It started when hope is no more cure to worriness
But a defer to live, in this life of weariness
Voices from the silence speaking out loud
Forcing me to dance to an unpleasant sound
The reasons to live became the reasons to die
Read my lips its not a lie
I hope my next action is understandable
Soon I might become unreachable
Hanging onto every tiny bit of hope of this world
An awful voice whispers to me to commit suicide without saying a word
Deep within me I lost all hope
Life is too unbearable, I just can’t cope
In my consciousness and unconsciousness
There are whispers in my head
Voices humming something I never heard
Dear friends and family I’m dying
Check my lips I’m not lying
The world is too much with us
little we see that we are not strangers
our social class may be different
and our belief quite contradicting
but fascinating enough we share the same sky
The world is too much with us
Little we know we can live without
bridging the divide and avoiding social conflict
after all we share the same sunshine
The world is too much with us
Little we hear about the untold truth
six feet below the ground
is where we all be put to rest
Time is one fair thing in the world
Irrespective of our social status or race
We all live on time
There is always a time for us at,
some certain point in life
There is always a time for us to live
And!
There is always a time for us to die
Time is fair, we can’t outlive our TIME.
It was another busy morning in the village of Ilujinle, children and women had their calabash with them as they journey along the path that led to the only stream in the village. Farmers had their hoes and cutlases with them as they set out to their various farms to prepare their land for the coming planting season. Emaka as usual had his bottle of locally brewed gin under his arm as he swore at the villagers.
Deborah watched these scenes every morning, it’s always the same everyday she said to herself as she looked up at the beautiful morning sun then she wished that she refused to remain in the village when her aunt urged her to come with her to the city.
“This whole place is a nightmare “, she remembered her aunt words.
“You will get a good life in the city”, her aunt had promised
“You might even get a rich man to marry you, you won’t have to worry about a thing”
She had such high hopes for her life in the city but all her hopes were dashed.
Six in the morning and the traffic was already near it’s climax. Cars were honking here and there and the city was already alive.
It was another day and Deborah had to worry about meeting another man who would treat her as though she was nothing but a piece of object to be used and abused.
She had just woken up from her two-hour sleep since she got back from the hotel where she met her last client.
Luckily for her Chief Festus wasn’t the rough kind of man. She never gets pained that she had to offer herself to Chief Festus and he pays well too. Madam Ceci also knew that.
The bang that came on her door next told her everything she needed to know. Madam Ceci was where for her own share of the loot Deborah brought home. It was as though everyone wanted a piece of her.
“Debbie!”, she screamed her name so loud that even the dead could hear and turn in their graves.
“No tell me say you still dey sleep”, she asked in Nigeria pidgin English.
“I’m not asleep. I’m just trying to find a dress to wear”
“Na soso big big grammar you dey always speak. Open this door before I break am down oo”
“Calm down!”
“Na me you dey tell say make I calm down. Na because say Chief Festus don like you na”
Deborah opened the door and Madam Ceci forced her way through the door as though she was being chased by an army of hired assassin.
Madam Ceci found a way to the nearest thing closest to a seat that she could find. She had such an obese figure that from banging on Deborah’s door to rushing into the room, she had to gasp for breath and find a place to quickly catch her breath.
Deborah couldn’t help herself but chuckle at the sight of it.
“Wetin dey make you laugh?” Madam Ceci asked as though she didn’t know.
“Nothing” Deborah answered admist a stiffled laughter.
Madam hissed, still trying to catch her breath
“Where my money?”
It was the audacity that irritated Deborah. Everyone felt that you owed them something. Money that you didn’t work for but still expected a share of it.
Deborah went ahead to give her ‘her cut’
“This thing small oo”
“That’s what you get because I didn’t get enough from Chief this time around “
“Na lie you dey lie”, madam Ceci protested but she knew she wasn’t getting more than that from her what she had already gotten.
“Ten thousand naira is small for this jobless woman. She should be lucky I still give her that much” Deborah thought to herself as she slammed the door after her.
She was fuming with anger and she secretly wanted to find someone vent all her worries on. A tear rushed to her eyes but she quickly pushed it back l. She didn’t know why she did that but she did it any way
“Mama, going to Lagos will be the answers to our prayers”, she had told her mother when Aunty Bimbo had encouraged her to join her in Lagos.
“You dont have to go to Lagos before you become successful”, Her mother had argued.
“I doubt if anyone can make it in this village of ours”
“I don’t think this is what your father would have wanted for you”
“My father would have wanted me to be very successful and do what is lawfully needful to become successful”
“I still don’t think you should go.”
“Mama, please. I beg you. There is nothing that would make me happier than going to Lagos right now and besides once I start earning, I will take care of you “
“It is not just about the money, Deborah”
“What is it then?”, Deborah quizzed.
“I don’t trust Bimbo. She has always had a way of finding illegitimate ways of making money. I can’t guarantee that she will let you make money in honest ways”
“Mama, you just want me to stay here with you”
She had left- without her mother’s knowledge. She snuck out if the house very early that morning to the park. Aunty Bimbo had given her the directions to her house in Lagos.
Aunty Bimbo who she later knew to be called Madam B turned out to be the most despicable person she had ever met. It seemed to Deborah that Madam B had forgotten that they were related in any way and treated her in the most dehumanizing way possible. She made her sleep with more than ten men everyday. Starved her and locked her up for days if she dared protested.
Eventually, Deborah accepted prostitution as a profession and a way of life. It wasn’t until Madam B died of a totally unknown cause that she started putting the pieces of her life together.
She found Madam Ceci on one of her several escapedes around town. Madam Ceci wasn’t as evil as Madam B was. It was easier to be free with Madam Ceci than it was with Madam B. She planned to make more money and leave Madam Ceci’s brothel as soon as she made enough money. But five years down the line and she hasn’t made enough money. From paying rent to Madam Ceci to sending money to her ailing mother and her struggling siblings. The needs were just unending.
“Come back home” Her mother had urged her once on phone.
“I can’t. I am working”
“What is that job you are doing?”
“I’m working hard. Don’t bother yourself with the details, Mama.”
Her mum was well aware that whatever job it was that her daughter was doing, she wasn’t going to like it so she never bothered to ask anymore.
Deborah knew that despite the fact that she told herself that she was still in the business of prostitution because she needs more money, the real reason is that she can’t see herself doing something else. The only thing she knows how to do and the only job she knows how to feed herself with is this prostitution. Her only goal was to leave the shackles of brothel managers like Madam Ceci and become independent and do what she wants to do on her own terms.
“I’m in this for life and I know it ” Deborah said to herself as she got herself ready for another day as a woman in the street.
Some things appeared like they existed.
They are never here, it’s just our hallucinations.
They only appear like a pool of water you see ahead of you on the road on a tormenting sunny day.
Sometimes I wondered if some things really existed in this world or we just believed they existed. Could it be that we think these things didn’t exist because we don’t always get what we want.
At times when we seek for love, we don’t usually get the kind of love we always dream of. In some cases when we get that love, we still feel like something is missing just like the last piece to complete a game of puzzle, without the last piece it’s an incomplete game.
Sometimes we are just like pawn in a chess game, we are sacrificial lamb to atone for some people sins. We never see it coming, do we loose our focus? Or do we trust others too much when we become too desperate?
We seek for happiness but we get sorrow, hardship, torment in return. Some one once said happiness is free but I always doubt the subject matter based on my instinct or should I call it my philosophy?
I decided to give the subject a second thought after a conversation with a friend when she said happiness is free but I need to make peace with myself to feel it. “Happiness is free but you need to open thy heart to feel its beauty” – Ogunsola Ayobami Samuel. I guess making peace with myself is a price I need to pay after all everything comes with a price.
When I was told I need to make peace with myself, those words hit me like a cyclone. I was like aren’t I in peace with myself? Telling me I didn’t have peace with myself is equivalent to telling me I didn’t love myself. But can a man not love himself? Then again I thought about it, if it could be because I never had the things I wish I had. Perhaps! Could that be the reason?
Like telling me to make peace with myself wasn’t enough, I was asked a shocking I never once thought I could be asked. You can imagine how shocking it could be to be asked “Do you know who you are?. Who am I? That’s a big question but unanswered one.
I realised that if I really want to be happy with my life no matter what the circumstances may be, I need to make peace with myself. I’m not doing good to anyone by making peace with myself, it’s something I’m doing for myself. People with different belief coexist at a place if that can happen among people then I should be able to make peace with myself.
But there is a question I can’t find answer to yet “How do I make peace with myself? I hope I get some clues from your comment.
Let it go! the worries of
Yesterday holding you
Back to see the blissful tomorrow
Seizing the happiness of today.
There are far, far better
Things ahead, better
Than any of the things
You leave behind.
Worry not about the past
Enjoy every bit of present time
Give little thought
To the future.
Time is flying
The blooming flower in
The winter will be dying in summer
Live
The passage of time is wide
Making it easier to run from us
Seize the day, trusting little
In the future
Carpe diem! Make the
Most of now
Give little thought to
The future.
In the depth of my heart
there lies my pain
the pains I get when
my emotions turn jagged
and my inside tight
Waiting with wide eyes
my heart hanging in my mouth
hoping for kindness
like a child I longed for
soothing
Instead I get balked
Pushing back against pain
for so long
medicating with friendship
yet returns in my weaker moment
and devastating my mind
I’ve come to realise
what endless pain would be
When I would wake up one morning
realising I was dead
buried and forgotten by those
who are dear and close to me
but alive and kicking to strangers;
people who don’t give a damn about me
I have known pain
when I go to sleep with it
every night and seeing myself
being lowered in my own grave
when I scream to those
mourning and burying me but
no one hears my scream and whimpers
I’ve never been a person
to hold a grudge instead
seeking to understand the
motives of another
It doesn’t mean there
is no scars
only that I have no
forgiveness of them
to forgive I must first resent
or at least that’s my understanding
Perhaps that’s how I heal so well
Anyhow, perhaps my scars
are my road map
maybe I’d be lost without them
Happiness is and will always be the most sought after, yet most elusive, of all human desires. Day in and day out, many search for happiness, but end the day empty-handed. It isn’t something we have to have permission for or that a factor or a person has to determine before we have it. It’s free!
It is that feeling that comes over you when you know life is good and you can’t help but smile. It’s the opposite of sorrow or sadness. Happiness is a sense of well-being, joy, or contentment. When people are successful, or safe, or lucky, they feel happy. It is a state of mind created within you I.e in the mind that gives you a sense of satisfaction, emotional well-being, and physical well-being. It is a state of relaxation and pleasure.
Happiness is free and a choice because, it does not necessarily mean that everything is perfect or that life is not good, sometimes, it is your choice to choose whether you want to be happy or remain sad and weighed down by the things that are going on in the society.
Two is that you have the power to love yourself and make things happen. Love who you are, love what you do, do what makes you happy, and eat what makes you healthy.
Soon, you will find yourself happier in situations and happy enough to make the right choices.
I have noticed that doing what makes you happy, is a sure way of staying happy. Never let anyone talk down on your happiness. Anyone who does that should never be your friend, safeguard your happiness by looking for people who love you as you are.
Staying away from those who talk down on your happiness is a way of letting them know that your life is what you make it and should never be controlled by what people say but rather what makes you happy and what you want it to be. I can remember fighting with my elder brother who loves to constantly make choices for me but forgets to consider how I feel and what I like.
It’s unfair to not have control over your life and over who you are. Take control of your life, do things that make you happy and healthy! Because happiness is free and it is a choice.
The Pen Creative World 