Breathe.

 I do not understand why it is so difficult to breathe.

I've tried again and again, but it's like I'm stuck in the tunnel of my airways, dancing to a tone of inability..
The oxygen that comes in squeaks as it squeezes its enormous illusion through little windows, my only view into the world.

I consider myself a rhythm within a broken record, the repetition of the combination of spoiled harmony and vague melody.

You may wonder why.

I believe its because I've restrained my sight from seeing, and my speech from speaking. I listen but don't hear, because I refused to embrace liberty when it was once offered to me.

I know what to do, I have only to call for liberty, His name only has to be a scream in my heart or a whisper on my lips.

He will come to me. I know He will.

HE WILL COME AND SAVE ME.

Then, only then will I know breath.

THE WOMAN IN THE IRON CAST SERIES (DAY 1)

6:00am

I am woke, and after the initial yawn, I remember who I am.

I am a mass of societal labels, I breathe and live the words spoken against me, to me and they have defined my entire existence.

I looked at dawn with a sense of forebode and I wished that dawn would not smile at me like satisfaction and its atmosphere would spur a retch in my belly.

I closed my curtain to the joyous possibilities dawn whispered calmly at me, already set to battle rejection with the consistent mask I have tasked my heart always, to bear.

7:00am

I am dressed in my work clothes, down to my little heels, but of course, I feel naked even though my long skirt is swishing around my ankles like the curtain draped over the window, and the cuff of my shirt tickles my wrist in an annoying reminder that I am imperfect.

I stepped into my hidden room, fearing no eavesdrop as I caressed the bodice of my armor, murmuring sweet words to her so as to soothe the wounds she bore and reassure her fear, for I knew as well as she, that today will not be different from the other days when I was plagued with blows from society.

I put on my armor, chanting the words I always say whenever I buttoned her up, "You can survive another day, you have been built to withstand the blow of words. Give silence to mockery, and ignore every sneer. For today is a day as many, and it will end as soon as a blink."

10:00am

Ada walked in as elegant as a moon on a stick, and she spread the fragnance of her new perfume deliberately by bumping into people and slowing her pace in front of the furious blast of air from air conditioners. She did a tour around the office making sure that those that purposely ignored her, noticed her.

She stomped towards me, making sure that whenever her ridiculous heels collided with the tiles, a very obvious sound of "KOI KOI" emanated from the clash.

She walked to my table and said in a voice that was as annoying as her personality, "Bia akpa akpu, Is oga around?", and the visciousness of her intent flew from her tongue and hit my armor's tired stance, and I had to take a minute to recover before I replied her demand.

10:00pm

I'm on my bed, my armor hangs worn, in my closet, and without the protection I am vulnerable. Ada's blow had only opened a door for many more and it was more than my shield could take and it'd cracked under the pressure.

On my bed, I shiver under the sweltering heat and will myself to sleep. This after all is just another day in my life.

"Please tomorrow, don't come so soon" I whisper as I drift into oblivion.

Translation of "Bia akpa akpu..." - "Listen, you bag of pounded Cassava.

OFFERING OF THE PRIEST

Sacred is the offering and bloody is the axe that threatened her neck.
The priest stood above the stones on the altar and muttered words of consecration as the knife glistened as ominous as an axe in the palm of the hand.
The offering writhed desperately as she fought death and stretched her pained hands to grab life's fading own.

Around the priest's dilemma stood a divided congregation of light and dark, all in a fighting stance, waiting for the whiff of war that the strike would begin.
While they stood readying themselves for the physical clash of swords, they battled on the spiritual field of the priest's mind, whirling in their struggle around his head like buzzing bees around honey.

The Priest heard turbulence as his voice boomed "Don't kill!! KEEP!!"

Immediately after the noise of turbulence roared his speech, CALM spoke with a voice as clear as peaceful blue seas, "KILL AND LIVE!!"

The universe looked at him from the opposite place of its dwelling and he wondered at the upturn of the very earth he knelt on.
He closed his eyes and focused, turning off the noise of turbulence and drawing strength from the PEACE of CALM...
HE opened his eyes, already sheathed from the corruption of deceit while ironically overcoming the distraction of the flu of confusion.
He looked down at himself on the altar and brought down his knife with as much force as he could muster, and then watched the form that plagued him for decades dissipate into non-existence.

Spilled blood, Genuine sacrifice, Altar of grace, became the mantra he lived by: For he found life after he gave himself away. Eternal life in the arms of CALM.

He is no longer a dead man walking, he is alive after death. Alive because of Grace. Alive because of HIM.

Death is swallowed up in victory!

Rjaygrace.

WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO BREAK ME??

WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO BREAK ME??
I did nothing to deserve your punch
I didn't know it was coming
I walked around the house confident that I was alone,
I didn't know you were inside my safe place,

Why would you want to break me??

I'm just a child, I should be playing with sand

I'm just a mouthful of milk teeth, I should be watching for the tooth fairy

I am just a kid who loves cookies and cream, I should be dunking plastic toys for victory teddies.

I am just a baby, I should be listening to my mother's heartbeat as she coos me to sleep

Instead, I'm in a corner, waiting for daylight to purge my room of its monsters.

Why would you want to break me??

I accepted your love and trusted your smile.

I blushed at your words and twirled at your gesture.

I called your mum and treated her to lunch

I accepted your diamond, and nodded 'I do'

I cooked your meals, and shaved your beard.

I fixed your tie, and kissed your goodbye.

I waited up for you, but you stumbled in angry.

You slapped my love into a grinder, and bruised me.

you tore my hair, and broke my nails

You killed my spirit and fried my soul

You ignored my tears and mocked my fears

Why would you want to hurt me?

I am but the rib The Creator formed into woman

I am a story that will be told for a million years

I am a wife to the BOSS of Eden, I am HIS girl,

I ignored the apple's succulent dangle, and I bypassed its temptations

Yet... YET... YET..

Why would you want to break me?

I live in an alternate universe where...

I pay the bills and wipe the kids

I fetch the gallons while my arms are weak

I smile to the wailing babe as I fix the broken hinge.

You sit in the seat in tune with the shows running on the player's field

You kick off your shoes and fling your socks in my face

You slap our son's head and push me towards the room, uncaring.

You drink and pass out in your vomit

Why would you want to break me??

Why would HE heal me??

This the question I asked as the preacher spoke of HIM.

I didn't believe him as he spat fire and damnation on the other side of groveling and forced repetitions

His message was a litany of a continuous diatribe that did not merely elicit a tedious case of ennui within my belly muscles, It pulled at the scab that barely covered my raw pain..

I still don't understand it, but I leaped across a huge valley of fear ant tethered at the edge of the certain cliff of love. 

Perfect was the smile of the safety HE assured. I grabbed HIS deliverance and clung to HIM like a terrier.

You did try to break me

You wounded my pride and crushed the rose of my smile.

Yet, I'm standing on a mountain as you wallow in the valley... 

(I guess the joke's on you, huh???)

HE turned the tables and I'm now the victor, when I was once a victim, with the rod of rule in my rod trumping the whiny cry of the whimper.

NOMAD

I stepped onto lonely street and stumbled along its rocky expanse; my walk didn't lead to heartbreak hotel like the lyrical poem of Elvis Presley's drift, instead, I found myself caught in the slickly wet of a spider's web.
My stagger was characteristic of the unsteady stagger of a drunk's foolishness, I moved in the opposite direction of the wind's pull.


I am NOMAD.
Tales of my gypsy streak may have titillated many ears seated around the cliché bonfire of cool evenings...
and my character may have portrayed me as a stranger,
wrapped in ragged clothing,
stained by the dust of the desert's rise,
tortured by the heat of the atmosphere, 
and helped along by a very dehydrated camel which bore the burden of an oath.. 

Ellipses...
The three blots on my personal...
Ellipses...
The inept completion to the words I dare not speak...
The fade at the end of my pain...
The consequential repetition of a circumstance speaks of a severity which my broken back pinky promised my lips not to yell...

I am a prisoner of my mind...
curled into the safety of my shell, holding my breath for centuries until my gasp becomes etched in stone, a pillar of pain unknown.
I am stalled by the silence of ellipses, which possesses the knowledge of everyone but never spills...

Pain...
a sequence of torture within, and sickly composure without.
I was asked to bare my pain afterwards, and I ripped the shirt of my shame and attempted a feat I deemed never...

How is it possible that I can speak of something I barely understand, and how can I understand a reality that blurs life until it shimmers along the reality of death?..

The cripple of death is a stealth beast that does not spur the love of a beauty, but soils the soar of Joy's wings and stains the white of her purity.

Melanin has become a pigment of my low estate.
I'm burnt as dark as brown, and that is reason enough to profile my reality and term it criminal.
I have been made to see through the lens of depreciating lines and I marvel at the single minded tenacity, and absolute wrath that rules him, and everyone he owns.

He would wake up after the dawn, tortured by secret demon we did not ken.
He will scream out orders and whips would decorate our battered backs with more scars. 
To them, we are trees that breathe and move, and the jealousy of our strength made them hit at us with the axe of their intimidation, with the hope to cut down our sturdy, until it becomes a whiny, whimpering weakness to their joyful chagrin.
I am Slave.
Labelled by lips identical to mine, and tongues that breathe menace like its food to savor.

I refused to do what they ask and hurt a child smaller than me, whose eyes sang of fear like a bloody symphony. they were drunk with their own evil, reveling in the vomit of their disgusting spew, and high on the perverseness of their existence.

I said "No", and their laughter turned to snarls. they threatened to break me and I smiled at the understatement. I couldn't be more broken than my circumstance.
They picked me up, they threw me down.
They picked me up, they kicked me down.
I rolled away staining my bruises with the harshness of mother nature's floor.

I flew off a cliff, and I fell in a slow motion style, characteristic of movies that would exist after me. I heard their laughter from a distance, just as I fell into the fountain as stiff as the nothing I was.

I called to death, from deep within.
I stretched my arms to welcome its cold embrace, and smiled when I saw it lurk yonder.
When I was just a hair-breath away from eternal doom, I heard a voice in the midst of singing.
"I love you", the voice whispered.
"Wait a minute"

The voice enticed me and I closed my eyes and accepted its sweetness.
I opened my eyes and I am on the bank of the river, washed clean of the dirt that melded its impurity to my flesh.
My spirit tingled and danced a rhumba on my heart's floor.
I heard footsteps, and instinctively tried to stand, but a hand gently nudged me down. HE treated my sores and washed my pain.
Now I stand in a place I was deemed unfit to.

HE opened a door, and I entered, 
HE changed my life,
Today I am a warrior with battle scars that erupts hymns, completely renewed, with a life born anew. 
I am the Master, when I was once the slave.
I am the priest, when I was once the offering.

Rjay-grace...

PAINT ME A PICTURE.

The tattoo artist drew her needle across my skin in a slow steady manner and thoughtful art.

I lay curled up in my mind waiting for the pain of its imprint.

Slowly... Stealthily, the line appeared on my wrist.

The little spurt eased the pain in my heart and I watched my blood, flow...

I looked at the tattoo artist, and shivered at the instrument she held.

While I hid in my cowardly nest, she exchanged the needle for a blade...

the spindle with its prick, stung my skin with its nick, and made the jumpy heartbeat of mine, tick ...

Label me no more the thoughts you envision, and the words you spew.

Oh! The red against the white of my pale skin.

Injury, bleeding for help, crying for attention.

The line that the blade spurt broke the vein that pumps to my heart.. My heart that once bloomed red with life, now bleaks the colour of pale-green, blood- none.

The tattoo artist jumped, "What have i done?" She asked, but that didn't stop it from marking my skin again and again until my left hand was a canvass of pain.

I drew my shirt to cover my arm, and forced my teeth to sparkle its white, outside the door.

Indoors, my hand called up to my heart, which struggled to grasp life's obscure reality.

"Where was your spirit, heart?

"Where was your spirit when the tattoo artist tied me down and drew her black art on me? 

Why didn't you stop her?" My left hand cried.

My heart was perplexed.

She was drawn between the victimized East and confused West, both were  lost and broken tools in the hands of the tattoo artist.

I am in the tattoo parlor again, but this time i'm skeptic. 

the table wasn't lined with its usual assemble of needles, blades and pain. Instead, the table boasted of a huge glittery knife.

I shook my head slowly at the artist.

She beckoned my advance.

I stopped my feet from stepping into the quicksand of her temptation.

"Come.." The voice ordered, releasing a gust of wind like the tale told of storms. I felt its whorl, whirl me into the complacency of its judgement.

I had been accused, prosecuted and judged while i struggled beneath my quilt of horror, trying to drown her screams in the permeable foam of my pillow. I screamed till my voice became hollow. 

I guess the indelible marks cannot be covered with the mask of Zoror. 

A warior like the legend, I'd imagined myself to be. Tearing

down walls and lifting my ready sword up, with my battle cry cutting down trees and felling my enemies, like the hero of fairy-tales sung in the moonlight.

The stars had dwindled its sparkle, and I'm a bit complacent to the inevitable axe above my neck. 

"Who are you?" I gathered my diminishing strength and blurted out my last words.

I am You!" She replied.

A thousand years went by as I stood transfixed in my bewilderment.

I walked to the mirror and stared at the image it presented.

I was staring at a typical meme with a scary catchphrase.

Astonished, I look at my right hand and it cried into my tears: Oh so broken were the marks criss-crossing along its expanse.

They looked black like the mark of a pencil, but dreadful like the slice of judgement, That when I realized, I'd always been the tattoo artist.

I was the wicked one i dreaded. 

I'd painted my face the colour of the walking dead. 

I'd let labels bury me under the weight of its lies. 

I'd let the abuse of time and wrong places hustle and bustle my life into the consistency of bumpy rides on a forgotten amusement park. 

Paint me a picture of deject and stick it to the string of labels that have been attached to my personality.

I was sorrow stuck in the continuous horror of never ending grieve, and I'd let my spirit suffer from the selfishness of my pain.

I stumbled out of the tattoo parlor into a path that boasted of rocks and the quintessential hard place which was ludicrous in its placement, but apt in its timing.

The bleeding of my feet as the rocks pricked its beneath could hardly stop my flight towards the freedom I saw beckon me  yonder.

I stopped as abruptly as shock does, in a bid to absorb the sight before my eyes.

The cross on the hill shocked my scattered mind into the tumble of memory that i'd never lived.

I saw, I heard, I felt, and I fell.

My knees folded to hit the ground, and the weight of pain I'd carried for times and seasons pulled my heavy soul down below the scattering of dust above the earth.

His skin glittered with wounds that resembled my heart's sores, and his hand bore piercings that characterized my shattered soul.

They beckoned to my abjectness, "Come and i'll give you rest"

His arms spread across my brokenness and engulfed my disintegrated past.

Paint me a picture of the slain, and let the unfairness of HIS arraign, so appropriately planned, wipe away the guilt of my pain.

What fortune lies beyond the stars
Those dazzling heights too vast to climb
I got so high to fall so far
But I found heaven as love swept low

My heart beating, my soul breathing
I found my life when I laid it down
Upward falling, spirit soaring
I touch the sky when my knees hit the ground

What treasure waits within Your scars
The gift of freedom gold can't buy
I bought the world and sold my heart
You traded heaven to have me again

My heart beating, my soul breathing
I found my life when I laid it down
Upward falling, spirit soaring
I touch the sky when my knees hit the ground

Find me here at Your feet again
Everything I am, reaching out, I surrender
Come sweep me up in Your love again
And my soul will dance
On the wings of forever- HILLSONG