Jaachi Writes

bashful, timid, quiet.  shy If anyone you know has used these terms to describe you, you're probably a bit shy. Everyone feels that way once in a while. Shyness and social anxiety are common, no matter how old you are. There is one myth about social anxiety and social anxiety disorder that I would like to dispel. The myth says that social anxiety is just exaggerated shyness. This myth encourages the idea that anxious people are merely weak-willed pushovers. It is partially because of this myth, I think, that well-intentioned people offer the relevant but insensitive and patronizing advice like, “Don’t worry about it!” , “Just do it” and “Face your fears.”  Thinking on all these, I wrote this poem: shy when a shy person speaks, it's like music from guitar strings. when a shy person smiles, it’s like the sun coming out when a shy person steps out it's like the uncommon visit of gods when a shy person reclines it feels like moon eloped from night when a shy person is 'i...

For Boys Like Us I was in Ulasi Road Primary School with Naeto Uche Njie for a video shoot of his spoken word piece. We had just finished the first and second scenes and sat on the school football field to review the video when I suggested a third scene.  Uche desired to feature a boy. Any boy. Just any boy. We scanned the field in search of wandering boys and found a sachet water hawker. His name, Chimaobi. Uche gestured at him to come over. He started towards us, a bowl of his ware on his head, a scowl on his face, dust plastered feet in a worn pair of slipper. Uche engaged him in a conversation in Igbo language. They talked about his education, family, child labour, the boy child, endless hopes and hopeless ends.  "Agara m school na Monday. Ubochi ndi ozo, m ga re pure water". (I go to school on Mondays. On other days, I sell sachet water). I'd pause replying a chat and shift my gaze to his face. I could see he's not satisfied. His voice betrayed him. Poor boy.  W...

this is how they become the water that sink their boats everyone was happy, she was the only sad one, a stroll to the market no negotiation needed she bought, made a knot and dangled lifeless before dawn loved ones had to untie both ends of the rope and live with the tragedy he can't trace the source of his sadness none could tell why he yells all night and slap the walls of his room "he kills mosquitoes all night" gossips the neighborhood but he is haunted by the trauma of yesterdays and none would reach out and touch his trembling hands so he pulled the trigger of his sniper and laid silently still beneath his duvet listening as the voices in his head slowly fade away with his last breathe. #SniperNoBeWine #WeShallFindJoy #Pengician #SSA Enjoyed reading? Please leave a comment and share with friends. Thank you!  

Keep Me Safe till the storm passes over keep me safe from caving in till the thunder roar no more keep me safe from imploding till the clouds take a walk from the sky keep me safe from these dark thoughts till my fears are knocked over keep me safe from myself and my doubts till my tears flow no more keep me safe from becoming one with the waves till I unction all the 'whys' keep me safe from my thoughts suicidal till we talk it over in the place of prayer keep me safe till the storm passes by #WeShallFindJoy #Pengician #SSA Enjoyed reading? Please leave a comment and share with friends. Thank you!  

Mark Chapter Two, Verse Thirteen  He bore my cross accepted my curse I'm sold out to His course. Storms may assault me I'll follow on clinging dearly to His promise. Where He leads I'll go. What He feeds I'll swallow. I have on me the mark of his suffering let no man trouble me. #Pengician #SSA Enjoyed reading? Please leave a comment and share with friends. Thank you!  

Ugo pressure makes diamonds, fire makes gold, when next you want to give up think on these, ugo the sky is yours to conquer don't ever chicken out glossary: ugo (Igbo) - eagle. #Pengician #SSA Enjoyed reading? Please leave a comment and share with friends. Thank you!  

Be You. That's What You're Born To Do It throws back all it receives with a glow: Be like your mirror. It stays true to itself in days bright and dreary nights: Be like your shadow. It takes humans to heaven and back an assurance that life's worth the living: Be like a moan You're not just a boy, son you're the light of dawn crawling over mountain tops Glow. Be you, for that's what you're born to do #Pengician #SSA Enjoyed reading? Please leave a comment and share with friends. Thank you!  

Racism Is Madness No sane earthling judges a car by the colour of it's body but by the durability of it's engine and whatever specs that lies in the inside and powers the car.  Humans are like cars, Lexus jeeps of different colour shades. Some black, some blue, some white, some ash, some a mix of this and that.  You're white, I'm black. He's Asian, I'm Ethiopian, they are Indians and they are Europeans... same cars with different colour shades. Why make the coloured feel less human because white adorns your skin?  No sane man does that!  In the inside, we are all the same! Racism is a madness. Until we see the evil that lurks behind the veil of racism, tear down the veil and let the beauty of variety illuminate our closed minds, there can be no cure. We will not be whole as a planet, as continents, as a nation, as people, until we recover from the madness that would render any child, woman, or man anything less than human. #Pengician #SSA Enjoyed reading? Please...

from 'sonless' father to his fatherless son dear son, when next your heartbeat stutter at the sight of a beautiful flower, pause, then hold your breathe for a second zoom in on her petals look, no, stare closer do not dwell on the beautiful fragrance that assault your nasals look, no, stare closer find a flaw and when you find her flaw fall in love with it in her flaws lies the beauty of her flower not all roses are red, my son, do not forget to remember for a love that never taste sour is a flower without petals with love, the dad you never had #Pengician #SSA Enjoyed reading? Please leave a comment and share with friends. Thank you!  

Fences and Defenses while I learnt how to scale the fence and place my life on the balance, others sat lazily on the fence until he lost balance sometimes ,  we scale these fences our chances at life to weigh and then throw down walls of defenses to show others the way #Pengician #SSA Enjoyed reading? Please leave a comment and share with friends. Thank you!  

ode to self dear stefn, your laughter is delightful and so is everything else do not let your mistakes hurt you find strength in the experience your words mean more than you think they do your opinion is worthy to be shared your songs are capable of being sung and so are your three sixty five poems when next your fears knock on the door send them fleeing down the stairs then sit back like your father's son and read your archive of poems and if your bare chin they mock tell 'em you've got inner beard #Pengician #SSA Enjoyed reading? Please leave a comment and share with friends. Thank you!  

I Survived The Storm Anyway grew up down town, in a small town when the rain come down, i'd just stare out my window by the balcony dreaming of what could be and how to be i ask the lord a thousand questions, won't the storm in my head break me? would i ever, maybe, break even? i wonder if i'd ever end up happy mum: if you pray, you'd survive any way then i'd go down on my knees shut my eyes and say 'lord, at your feet, i lay me down my fears i pray i outlive my fallen peers. and if this storm, dear lord, would not abate i pray the lord my soul to take' amen! grew up down town, in a small town  i think i survived the storm anyway #Pengician #SSA   Enjoyed reading? Please leave a comment and share with friends. Thank you!

Colours, Basket, Storms and Unrequited Love sometimes he's a basket of rainbow colours sitting on the head of an old woman: back bent,  age stricken once poverty stricken twice but her husky and spent voice sing the rainbow into her her worn basket until the storm or life begone. other times, he's a bridge lying still over stormy waters, watching his dreams being tossed up, down, left, right in the raging arms of an angry ocean, whose culture spells three words: wonder, wander, water: he stares at her liquid wonder spread into the horizon he wanders, first sole deep, scared then soul deep, fearless until he's drawn into the muddy whirly center of her to become one with her water well, tonight, he's a trio versed poetry carelessly scribbled on the tombstone of his dreams: here lies genuine love, dead alive. moan if you may, but don't cry. Aba! #Pengician #SSA   Enjoyed reading? Please leave a comment and share with friends. Thank you!

retracing heritage walls shall crack open through the cracks, illumination shall thrust through roofs shall cave in and form a warm hole that'll suck in archaic beliefs grounds shall sink and take with it the feet of those who led us astray on that day, when the son of man shall raise his middle finger to rewrite opinions that amoebae-d the shape of us soon i shall retrace my steps, backward, to where we were before the illusionist abolished  our reality soon   Enjoyed reading? Please leave a comment and share with friends. Thank you!

How A Boy Finds Closure when a boy loses grip on life, he turns to poetry: that gives rhythm  to silence,  light to darkness, colours to monochrome, sinew to dry bones in poetry, a boy finds the magic of metaphor in falling s                  c                    a                      t                       t                        e                          r                           e                            d                             ...

If My Body Is A Jacket if my body is a jacket let it be a temple for the music human's fail to dance to, let it cling to the ears of my soul caress my spirit with symphonies and keep me warm from every biting cold of betrayals if my my body is a jacket let it sinew my bones from thorns-laden roses and be an underground cave that shields my soul from the tornado that descends from heights of hopes lest i be uprooted from my sole to float about like the hangman's rope if my body is a jacket let it be like stanzas of a poem tattooed  on my flesh like a mosaic of many random happy memories -  soothing.   Enjoyed reading? Please leave a comment and share with friends. Thank you!

You'd Still Be Lost you'd stare at your diary like a hungry street boy lost in thought you'd invoke words in your subconscious but they will appear clad in insibidi humming incantations alien to the lord's prayer you'd reach out for your laptop and fondle her power button caress her desk top in search of a song double click on it and flood your eardrums with flavour's 'awele' as your soul traverse unholy lands, away from the burning bush you'd sigh, chew on your tongue, grit your teeth and sip some spittle say a prayer for your soul and question the gods a little you'd fly on the wings of the afrobeat expending your demons with every drumbeat undressing your thoughts with every piano key you'd think distant thoughts about him, her, them, it and find yourself alone in the womb of life  like it was before birth happened you'd evaporate s l o w ly into slumberland because a boy lost in wishes could only dream of tomorrow  to rehearse again u...

WRITE ME A POEM (VII): SHARDS contorted by wind, flawed as it is with my breed mere armatures for ice or snow, mere mortal munching incantations of gods unknown, like palm trees resolve to endure for now, the boisterous wind that caress their balls, i bend here, there, everywhere to the musical of the wind then, comes autumn, like leaves, I fall uprooted from the loamy of my heritage, and planted on the sandy surface of foreign cultures, ripped apart, burn to ashes, the indentity of me because, I must be as patient as a toad, lurking in a pool of it's own tears, for that fly, whose mama couldn't instruct how to fly, before he was snatched from her arms, leaving her nipples wet with milk i am broken, and I will break all over again, as the cold reality of yesterday's dreams pierce hard through my skin,  like mosquito bores holes through my soul,  its sharp blade against my throat, muting my cry for help with the puff of what's left of me write me a poem about shards #Pen...