My Pen Is Out of Control

Writer’s Note: Hello, hi. So I’ve decided to leave little notes on top of the distins I post. I see other people do it and I think it’s nice. Plus, what better way to charm you than to write notes to you? 

Anyway, with work and school going on it’s been difficult to write. But we still dey top. I started actively writing poetry again about a month ago, and this will be my first time posting a poem on my blog. You’re not supposed to enjoy it, but you’re allowed. 

Blessings.

My pen is out of control.

It has a mind of its own.

Like,

Sometimes it takes my emotions and immortalises them in ink;

And strips me bare of all sophistication so readers can see how I think.

I feel robbed when bits and parts of my brain and soul

Can be found by anybody wherever I wrote

I’m talking textbooks, on exam papers, bathroom walls, skin, my phone.

I find it’s impossible to be a private person when you’re a writer.

Impossible to be private when bits and pieces of me are left as signatures in what I write,

Accessible to anyone who reads with mind wide open;

While I’m hoping,

Don’t notice 

Don’t notice

Don’t notice I was sad that day. 

Don’t notice my heart’s been broken.

Don’t notice I’m giving up on myself.

Don’t notice my pain.

And whenever I feel  I have my demons down on lock

In comes my pen with the key,

Unlocks the padlock to the box  I keep them in

Just so it can watch them as they torment

Me till I start to produce genuine content 

Of raw emotion.

Yes.

So when my pen writes, I bury it.

I put it in folder after folder after folder like you do with your porn stash.

And somehow temptation comes my way like a thief and raw cash,

In the form of an interested reader 

Talking about ‘Can I see something you’ve written?’

Can you see something I’ve written?

And before I know it I’m clicking and clicking

Going past the not-so-emotional ones I should be picking 

Till I reach that one poem I wrote the day my cousin was killed,

And I was out of my mind

With grief 

And I released 

Word after word of 

Heartbreak, with tears

Running hot down my face 

And my eyes were red 

And I could barely see

But tap tap tap

My fingers spoke for me

And articulated my pain on my phone screen.

And you say ‘It’s beautiful’ immediately after you read,

And I smile like I agree,

But really I don’t.

Because, it really is not.

I mean, yes the words came out alright 

But those same damned words put up a fight 

Inside of me because they don’t fit in the cage

I built for them.

I beat them back every single day but they just don’t seem to learn.

‘Let it out’ I can hear you say to me

I appreciate your advice, but see,

I can’t.

Because I’m protecting me.

I’m protecting me.

You see my pen? 

It’s out of control.

It has a mind of its own.

Any chance it gets it wants to cut me open and show

My interior for the world to scrutinise

So they can see I’m really not such a tough guy.

It leaves me exposed.

It makes me vulnerable. 

And I can’t have that.

I can’t.