Bodies Not Out Our Own
Just like God came down and clad himself in flesh,
That is how storytellers wear bodies not their own,
That is how they shift their own pain to take up the pain of another person.
Sometimes storytelling can be painful,
Just like it was painful for the Almighty when he wore the flesh.
He cried.
He wept.
He was hated.
He was persecuted.
He was crucified.
Storytelling on the other hand, is a calling one cannot run from.
It is impossible.
At the time of maturity, the stories you are meant to tell start looking for you,
Whispering into your ears.
It gives you access into its mysteries,
Into its different realms.
It draws you into solitude,
To tell a story.
To reveal a secret.
You wear other people’s bodies to tell some of these stories,
And it’s not often an easy process,
But you do it.
You have to do it.
You have to take off the burden.
So when we write, we are not only writing about ourselves.
We are wearing the bodies of millions of other people, born and yet unborn.
We are conversing with the universe.
We are talking to the universe.
We are writing about different worlds.
We are restoring dignity to places.
We are giving voices to the voiceless.
We are treading upon the serpents and scorpions of this world.
Art And Pain
Pain is the bedrock on which an artist sits to work.
Art is the artist’s response to pain.
When he’s assailed by pain
He sits down to make something out of it.
He sits down to talk back to pain,
To hold a conversation with pain.
He sits down to give pain his own blows,
The blows do not have to come from pain alone.
The artist wants to fight back.
He wants to give out his own punches,
Blows…
He wants to pummel pain.
Give pain some slaps.
Give pain his own ‘I dare you’ responses.
He wants pain to know there’s still a long way to go.
He wants to shame pain.
Belittle pain.
You think you are going to harm me?
But you are actually exalting me
Dear pain,
Thou exalts me!
You think you will make me cry.
But I’m carving beauty out of my scars.
I’m carving beauty out of my bruises.
I’m carving beauty out of the lashes you gave me.
You gave me a ladder to climb into creativity.
What else could the artist have done?
How else could he have coped?
How else could he have understood what was happening to him?
What was happening around him?
How else could he navigate through the myriad of questions?
He simply turns to art
He starts to paint.
He starts to design.
He starts to write.
He starts to create.
He starts to carve.
He starts to raise the dead in him.
To heal the blind in him.
He starts to rise,
Like Maya Angelou.
He starts to sing.
He starts to dance.
Where is thy sting, O pain?
Where are the chains you brandished?
Because they didn’t get me.
Your chains did not see me.
Because I leaped
Dear pain,
I jumped.
I transcended thy limitations
I have flown into the skies
I have spoken to the world
Where is thy sting, O pain?
Because I will continue to sing and fly into the heavens.
Isaac Dominion Aju is a Nigerian Pushcart Prize nominee. He’s appeared on Poetry X Hunger, Flapper Press, Asemana Magazine, Cajun Mutt Press, All Your Poems Anthology and The Kalahari Review. He’s the editor at Words Not Yet Spoken literary publication.