The Best Years

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We go weeks and months in between

We can’t, but want to be there

Sharing coffee, spilling tea, remembering

The bond we’ve nurtured over these years

You see, I watched your kids grow up

They grew up right in front of me

And I remember when you jumped the broom

How we danced that night, I remember 

Yes I remember

That one birthday, we got so lit 

It was all a blur but the memory remains

Just like I remember that year you graduated 

And how we celebrated

We laughed 

We sang

We danced

These are the times 

The times I will always remember 

I remember waiting outside the club 

Freezing in heels

Waiting to get to our table

I remember that time we got so high

I thought the car was a spaceship

I got seasick and my insides met your floor 

I remember

I remember you making music working on beats

And us sleeping on that hard floor of that studio

Yes I remember

How could I not remember 

How time has escaped me

Where did the minutes go

The hours we used to spend talking on the phone

Take me back to the soccer games we played 

The young love I used to date 

Time is precious

And as my clock ticks down 

I learn to cherish 

Because these days will swiftly pass by

And today will become yesterday 

Within a blink of an eye 

Black hair turns gray

And suddenly we can’t remember certain things 

We lived in so many moments 

But we will never get them back

The memories will never let go

And it’s getting harder to stay in touch

But wherever you go 

However you grow

Please, just remember 

Remember how things were before

Before we had jobs

Before we had nice clothes

Before the car payments

Before we knew what we now know

Our time is ever fleeting

And these years will keep going faster

Seeming shorter

So be in the moment 

When it comes to memories I’m a hoarder

And I will hold on to as many details as I can remember

Because to remember 

Can feel like to relive 

And to relive is to experience love once again

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Fork in the Road

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Things will be as they will be.
Divine intervention saved us one, two, three many times
and this time I’ll be the one to walk away
I won’t make you go but i cant keep you Don’t ask me to stay
it’s time to move on toward the rest of your life. Without me.
It’ll be beautiful
The love we commit to one another had to be equal
But we kept missing eachother
Skipping eachother
You looked in my eyes and saw me playing tug of war
with what I was feeling and what you were seeing
We were not aligned
The stars turned to dust
And now the memories will forever remember us
As the two who could never be
Who keep finding eachother
But fail to believe
We remain in limbo
And we never grow
Throw in the towel
Things must go on from here
There’s potential in the atmosphere
For us to lead happy lives
Without eachother
Though we’ll never find no others
Like us
Sometimes life ends up like this
I’ll go left and you’ll go right just
Pray we don’t loop around and
Take this same walk again
The merry go round must end

Love in the Light

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Glistening over the dark ripples

of my waves

These tides have soared high and still

that white light, the way it shines so

Bright

So

Clear and true

I know the source could be from none other than you

You and all of your glory

For centuries people have heard of your stories

Wandering about, searching for confirmation

Yearning for proof of this

Your imprint traces the outline of my heart

and it keeps beating for you

Every day, and with every start

You breathe into me

Yes, you breathe into me

And by the end of the day its your caress

that is needed to fill this void in my chest

Love, when will you show your face

When will you intertwine with my spine

and walk with me until there is no time

How long have we waited?

Just to be in the same spaces

The demands of our lives tugging and ripping us further away

But I know Love,

Real love always stays

And while we are still protected by how hard our grandmothers prayed

We are still learning to love Love, day by day

Things grow lighter when we finally let go

And feel what it feels like to love in the light.

Life’s Nutrients

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There I sat in a skyblue pencil skirt paired with a yellow top I once wore to dress up like that Arthur meme. Starry eyed. Enamored by the opportunity I have each time I visit my uncle and am able to witness what friendship looks like. In real time. A friend might be one of the rarest things to come across in earth. It requires an intentional effort. A real decision to be there for one another unbound by space and time. I sat there listening for hours to my uncle, one of the greatest storytellers I’ve ever known. And for hours my father laughed and corroborated these stories. We discussed many things and I continued to bounce my eyes from my uncle to my father and back again. Effortless. This relationship is deeply rooted. The synchronization of their spirits is one like I’ve never seen before. I can never help but to be in awe.

            The main topic of discussion was nutrients. Nutrients are needed in order to sustain growth and a good quality of life. They are natural and can be found in foods. Many foods of which seem hard to find at your local supermarket these days; nonetheless, necessary. My uncle showed us the early springing fruit in his garden that he has tendered and gardened with love over many seasons. He talked us through each fruit and it’s story. Alternating between Twi and English but we still all laughed in the same language. This conversation was vastly informative; I learned so much about how to improve my own health and make better healthy choices in order to live a happier and healthier lifestyle. The stories that were woven in to give context and background to nutrient rich fruits like the goji berry, allowed my imagination to soar. I was blown away by the amount of information that was transported to me with such ease and humor. This moment I began to hold onto like it was my birthday, hoping it’d never end.

We came back inside to talk more. And as I was sitting at my uncle’s table drinking coffee spiked with vanilla and caramel creamer, I began to wonder about life’s nutrients. The metaphorical value of nutrients. What aspects of this life are required to sustain growth and a good quality of life? What do we need? Who do we need? In my 24 years of life I’ve learned that I don’t need a lot to be happy. In fact I’m the unhealthiest when I use things in the exterior to fill my insides. To increase or enhance my mood. But as the naturalista that I truly am, I love and respect nature. I believe in nature. When I am out in nature for a walk or just to breathe in air, to greet the sunrise or admire the moon, I’ve found my spirits are higher. So now I’m determined to intake more of life’s nutrients in order to be happier. I’m elevating to a new level that does not require engaging in toxic relationships, or relying on drugs or alcohol as a requirement for happy. Happiness comes from within. And it comes from what you put in. I’m most happy when I’m doing things that I love, unworried about things that may be out of my control. Completely submerged in the present but still keeping my dreams surrounding a better future. I’ve learned that I tend to isolate but that in life we do need each other. We need people to laugh, cry, dance, play, sing, study, share and Be with. We do. No man is an island. There is a reason and a value for every person who enters and even exits your life. What makes the difference between the people who pass through and those who stay is the love. Love is a decision. A constant. And in any friendship you have to consistently make the decision to choose one another. Much like my father and my uncle. They have chosen to keep in contact. They know each other so well that they know what works for them. I want that. I have been wanting and working and building and failing and trying to rebuild again and again to eventually have friendships like that.

Which leads me to one of the most important relationships with the richest source of nutrients that I know: God. Aligning myself with God in a way that I spend time in an organic and genuine way with Him is crucial to my health. I feel better internally and externally. It is difficult to do almost anything without hope and having a relationship with God gives me that. My father and Uncle each have a strong faith and relationship with God. Independently and yet also together. They pray for one another and also with. They have devoted themselves to living the work of the Gospel and that is why it’s not surprising that they have been able to align themselves with one another in a way that is heartfelt and real. They are like-minded and like hearted individuals. Since I was a small child, I was exposed to a friendship between my uncle and father where they would do anything for each other. It engrained in me a true respect for a friend. And now I know friendship in all of its rarity is a requirement for happy in this life. This is why I am constantly striving to be a better friend and am able to recognize how blessed I am to be able to call even one person-Friend. We all need more of life’s nutrients and we may need more of some than others but constantly evaluate your level of happy. And be sure to recharge on all of the good things so that mind, body and spirit you are able to stay healthy and keep happy.

CHEMS

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All of these chems

Blue blood pumping

infiltrating my system

A doctor twisting my intuition

Unbearable

Bordering miserable

How can I go on like this?

Life is locked inside these bottles

Inside these tablets

Inside of these capsules that are sweltering

With the illusion of happy

These bottles they twist and we still pop too

Because the desperation is real

we dangle on the edge of sanity the moment we wake from soiled sheets

Sheets we swam in to escape our forced Goodmornings but that we still cling to our almost lovers or their absence thereof

Fearful of these never ending nights

Can’t rest

Can’t eat

And we don’t protest this cycle

Cause we settle for whatever chems they decide is best

Cant seem to find, but we know it’s the nutrients that were missing

For now, we bury the costs

And still wonder,

What will we have left?

The Anniversary Vows

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Bishop: Akosua Renee Bamfo, will you have, This Black Man, to be your wedded husband, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony; will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, keep yourself only for him so long as you both shall live?

 

Akosua: I do.

I love you.

The moment I laid eyes on you I knew I wanted to know you. In fact the first person I told was a mutual friend of ours. I asked her “Who is that?!” and she said it’s just You. From the beginning, there was always a powerful energy. A feeling like we needed to speak. We needed to share vibes. We needed to share something. I found myself wanting to expose parts of myself to you without having known you in real life at all at that point.

This is how I know, I do.

I do for you, not because we have committed our hearts this far. But I do, because I did the moment I met you. The moment I blushed behind bronze cheeks to introduce myself and you forgot my name and we can’t even remember the event where we first met eyes. I knew this was something special. This is something worth fighting for. Love, sitting up for hours under the moon, watching nature unfold behind us as we shared our passions amidst a playlist I curated is my favorite memory. It’s the one I hold the closest to my heart because it is the rawest. Raw in the sense that we were both just two kids. Two kids eager to be around each other. For no other reason than that we were curious. I was curious about you for a while. Silently I grew closer to you and I looked forward to your simple yet profound messages.

What we have managed to create and somehow sustain is a love I never imagined could exists. There has never even been a movie made to depict a love this great. This is the love I was always unsure if I would ever experience. And I know it to be love because it feels as important as breathing but as complicated as being. It feels good to know I have someone in my life that gets my purpose, sense of humor and also my sense of sadness. We might be the most depressing people I have ever encountered and yet we’re full of joy. You spread it and I spread it and I know this because I see how people look at you. And I feel how people look at me. The vibrations are similar. And I’d just like to say I never anticipated it being this easy to look this good on the most beautiful day with animals running around outside. The sun’s setting. And I’m standing in front of my best friend who is looking ultra fly, I must say.

I couldn’t imagine what it’d feel like to say, let alone write, these words. Words are important to you too, so I wrote these for you. Because I know you know they are imagined for you. Love, it is always fleeting and yet we are always here. Near or far, I will be running with you. We will be running and sliding and dancing and cha-chaing or swag-surfing or doing whatever it is we need to do to survive here. And it will be beautiful. because we will be going through life together. We will be experiencing what it feels like to move with the wind and also get knocked down by it, together.

In typical Sua fashion, or should I say style, I’m having a hard time ending this. Not because I don’t have the words, but because there is no full stop at the end of one of my “I love you’s” so I guess I’ll leave it just like that; I love you

ADHD

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I never knew they had a Word for this

 

I have only known what it feels like to lose. To have everything I have ever loved taken from me. And this pain felt like the sensation that hood niggas talk shit to other niggas about and swap tattoo stories with but only with their real Niggas so they can share the artistic symbolism behind the sheer grace that covers them and the prideful protection that reminds them that even though “it says in the Bible not to get tattoos or piercings” every day I’m a survivor *destinys child voice*…..nigga.

(and only real Niggas could feel how Crazy this shit right here really is Son!!!)

And then they laugh about it later.

But I am not finding anything about this funny.

And people who know me tell me I just lost my laugh. why so serious, love?

And I already know it’s cause I Know they know I be sitting up in my room all night playing that little violin like I’m spongebob harmonizing freestyles to my Nigga cole’s “Too Deep for the Intro”

I know.

BUT

Is this not factual? Because they really are.

They are Survivors, who have met Death and knocked that nigga tf out.

And came back joyfully hollering “aaaaaayooooo!” All the way back up the same block they got shot on to encourage the rest of us niggas who They knew atleast One of us niggas would be there any time of the Day. But we didn’t even notice them walking up because our eyes be low and last we heard they was still hooked up in the hospital cause they mama still crying on the floor hugging her heart into the doctors leg. Knowing she can’t afford it, but still willing to beg like the dog They already see Her as

Just so they don’t.

don’t turn

Them

off.

And, us niggas cold out here blowing white air into our rubbing palms. And taking turns between that and keeping our hands in our pants but we Had to step out real quick cause if we thought about it too long we would cry and Real niggas can’t cry outside, so we just focused on the thought that we were already sure of:

He was definitely dead.

Now, I’ve never been shot before.

But this pain felt like that. Like those stories I’ve heard from niggas I’ve Known who share about that burning of a bullet that is stuck in the muscle that even takes doctors and specialists a long time to dislodge

I have felt this same physical pain niggas respect where I’m From but only, it was in my mind.

still I felt This:

every

single

time.

I labeled myself abandoned. I am the other bright little yellow glove that is never recovered in the brown little bin they keep hidden somewhere in the front office of most public schools. The Ones where They Have to rip sheets of White Printing Paper and use Tape and the Nearest Ink Pens they could Find to hurry and label and tape on it and write in chicken scratch to be Inclusive of Everyone so they can all Know this is where the school’s:

“lost and found” is.

So I never understood why people told me to suck it up:

Just pray. I’ll pray for you. Just get up. See somebody. We all got shit to do. We all got a story. I’m going through real shit right now too. You loved Solange album but still ain’t realize you can just Smoke it awaaay? Stop crying. Stop being a baby.

cry baby.

CRY Baby!

                                                    Nana-Nana-boO BOOM!

 *covers Eyes instantly to catch and Keep the Only things I have Left to call Mine so they can’t see It and steal it*

And also to say a quick Prayer to the baby named Jeezus that I learned about Last Sunday at Evangiless Cathedriul Academy Sunday School that was in the Gym of some School.

Cause They Taught me this Song that Taught me about another Kid only a lil bit younger than me Who uhm they said he loves all the kids in the whole wide world and i know i’m 6 now but i think I’m kinna a kid right? or i forgot. but i’m in the middle. cause Chocolate is the baby. and Tink is taller than me. but they told me he Loves me SO Much that He said if I Believe in Him then I Can Never Die.

*finally starting the prayer, clears throat*

UNKNOWN CALL:

*whispers through sniffles*

hi…may I ask who’s speaking?

(oh! Dory moment. I’m the one who called facepalm emoji)

baby..uh…Jeezus? uhm yeah so my Name is u-u-Ah-koo-oo… uhm its hmm Akoo.soo.wah Renny uhm BAMfour but like I mean everybody calls me swa and I like that better so you Can. Call. Me. That. too… so uhm anyways, u-hm someone told me I could call you because uhm like yeah my daddy gave me this name it uhm it means something in African cause oh yeah I forgot to tell you my my daddy is from like Africa. And its a small place but its reaaaaally far away and I cant uhm remember what its called but uhm I can tell you when I ask Miz. Penland when she come gets me on monday. And I think we did just learn sumn about how Africas got to ride a boat sooo far away just to come here and the bad white people hurt them but now theyre happy again and they wear this uhm yellow color African color uhm clothes thingy uhm now I think I remem-mber. Uhm and they can yeah uhm be free now so uhm now nobody can hurt my daddy anymore because uhm my daddy was one of them. Too so now like he lives in our uhm new big house we moved to. And its sooo much fun here! Uhm but uhm and uhm OH! its me and my sisters and my Big brother. he always the only One who allways tell me I’m his favrit. and im not sure where my mommie is right now but she promised shes coming right back. So uhm yeah we live here uhm. And uhm I was born here but uhm. Its kind of like uhm I cant really speak right now uhm

but I just

but I just

but I just

wanted you to know about my name cause my daddy told me about it means something uhm about the day I was born I think and I cant remember which day that is yet even tho I just learned uhm the days of the week song in Miz. Penland’s Class that we get to sing allll together every morning! but uhm I think like uhm idk…but uhm just please uhm like uh baby Jeezuss uhm like can you like maybe kinna uhm like ….maybe uhm may you please, please, pretty please just change your mind and hurry and let me die?

So…maybe I can come play with you instead… sometimes…uhm if You want?

Pause

cuz my daddy can call your daddy and maybe we can get allowed to go to da park. we can walk to the one by my house? if you want? cause big kids be there too like my sister Tink-Tink so we can like be safe even at dark. I mean uhh its okay if you can’t. I’m just trying hard not to believe in you since you probably live far away from me and I cant ask my daddy to take me. Cause uhm. So you can just do that please cause uhm Cause I mean like the pretty white Ladies at the church uhm I know its in the gym at dat school but uhm my daddy told me uhm it Is still uhm like a real Church. So uhm like They told me you were um like uhm really nice so yeah. I was just calling to say Hey. And like if you get a chance im just wondering if you could uhm like give me a call back please? uhm or uhm I mean i don’t know anybodys number by heart but my daddys and I kinna don’t know if I can sneak his phone because he doesn’t like to leave it in his coat pocket anymore I think or I haven’t seen it there uhm. uhm but yeah cause hes always at work all night and I keep falling asleep too early to see him but sometimes I do hear him walking and then I pretend to be sleep cuz uhm im scared he might yell at me because I was supposed to go to sleep already. But we was outside playing at the park wit the other kinds around are way and uhm so uhm like idk when I can see him to ask him to use his phone and uhm he might be tired so I cant ask uhm so….if you can just uhm. Make it just quiet again uhm. It would be Appree she ate it.

Thank you uhm for your uhh, thank you uhm, for your uhh, for your tim!

Thank you for your tim.

Have A Good Day.

 

Bye-Bye.