"ADE'S JOURNAL", 72

  The rains are here again, six hours on and it just pours and taps at the roof in an uneven manner. Much like life it intensifies and dissipates and then comes and goes. I am wide awake and this rain feels like it will pour all night with an oscillating
intensity that just wont stop. The dark clouds leave and an intense bright thick cloud clusters mercilessly, up above in the dark sky. Then it stopped,not a drop or a whiff of the cold breeze. All that was left was a stiff atmosphere with barely enough air to breathe. Not enough plants to synthesize the air and too much artificial carbon monoxide in circulation. I have stayed too long here and I fear that plastic flows in my veins. My dream of moving to a remote area, off the dream truncated abruptly.

"ADE'S JOURNAL", 71

     How disappointing it is to see the same old thing over and over again, to want to change and then watch it all dissipate like smoke. Slow moving smoke forming beautiful white spirals, climbing up to an invisible sky and then vanishing into nothing. It will be so easy to just stop and do nothing, say nothing, be nothing. To just never take any step and just let it all happen, after all life takes the twists and turns it wants to whether I try to change or not. Life ignores my efforts and jolts me in different directions and chooses to reward me only when it wants to. I want to survive this reckoning, this time of great trials and tribulations. I want to rise up and hold up my spear and dagger, a hybrid of bronze, wrought iron and steel. In there is titanium, protecting and shielding me and by my side a hand made holster with my dagger in it. The shadowy creatures launching at me feign friendship, feign being me and it shocks me. Actually I feel the electrical current touch the surface of my skin and dig down into the core of my bone marrow and I feel the pain in the middle of the top of my forehead. I want to pass out and not feel a thing but my body holds on and the pain lingers on. I see myself stretch out and catch me as I begin to fall and as I stop my impending fall. The floor below caves in, revealing an awkward sink hole. And as I hold on and hug me, I breath easy and look at the abyss below. My standing self has a solid floor beneath her and walks backwards carrying me away from the sink hole I am suspended over. We both crash into the firm ground away from the sinkhole and become one and then I look around me and try to figure out where I am…

"ADE'S JOURNAL", 70

  A Crescent Moon shines tonight, ignoring that I have used all my might. Fluttering birds whisper in the night, clashing with sounds of mechanical and electrical engines supplying my humble flat with power. Across my open curtains overlooking a round large moon is the mosquito net, shielding me from the hungry mosquitos outside. I watch a lone butterfly take flight and dance outside across my window frame, like a painting caught in a moment. Fewer are these flying creatures that have been truncated by disappearing flowers, too expensive to maintain so we just get and plant flowerless plants. The bees no longer hoover over the ripe mangoes because no nectar around means they have no means to make honey.
So, slowly Lagos dies with less blossoms thriving here and yet we do not notice.
I do but I’ve been done nothing up until today, today I not only planted aloe vera but also hibiscus plants. It’s not enough for it to be green, it must and should also blossom.
The silver hues from the moon soothes me and I smile at her as if we were reminiscing about the past.
Just a way of swaying my dim moments as our unspoken conversation sips in through. The winds blows the curtains hanging in the corners out and free and over my windows. I shut my eyes and then peep a little from my curled up position waiting. I know exactly what I want and this time, I am going for it. Every time I proclaim that no longer will I wait in vain for a dream that never seems to happens, reality quickly crushed all incentives. Right now, I want it to make a way.

"ADE'S JOURNAL", 69

    I know everything is about to change as I sit on this powder keg and wait. The ceiling fan is faster today and the air, cooler this early morning. My tough afro curls, crunch and spring up as I press and run my fingers through it. I love when my hair isn’t twisted or braided or knotted into tamed rows, boxes or even corners. Especially after a lengthy long even back length braids. Which makes me look amazing, no doubt. But my amazing beautiful thick tight curls feels buoyant when in between my fingertips, I miss running my fingers through it. And right now it feels like a beautiful reunion, me and my glorious crown. I’ve washed and unbraided it and I like the sound it makes so much when I touch it, that I don’t want to fall back asleep. It’s like a wild romance, with my one true love.

"ADE'S JOURNAL", 68

  Nostalgia can be beautiful and can also shave off many years, but that’s all it can do. Make you reminisce about beautiful memory from the past, but what about right now? As I am listening the song playing right now, it is a song that played over and over again on television when I was growing up. My parents were warm and gentle and the music video showed what I imagined their old age will be. At first  this memory is cute, but after listening to it twelve good times I have had more than enough. I will probably not want to hear the song for another twelve years. Well it is a song that churns up buried memories of that skinny naïve tiny little me, I  imagined how grown beautiful me will be in my late thirties. Good old memories of me and my two little children running round and sound me until they fall out of balance like I used to do. I picture it all, until I feel an intense pain digging into the cuticles of my fingernails. It overwhelms me and I start to curse in clear English and as the pain intensifies, I move to undiluted clean Yoruba language. I am speed talking now and chanting, yes chanting. Or should I just say reciting a painful ode to myself fast, I didn’t even know what I was saying anymore. All I wanted was to be free of the pain and do you know what the most devastating part of today is?
The doctor has just sucked out pus from one out of eight of my fingers.
I can’t believe I have any ounce of anesthesia inside my body, it feels like she is injecting the middle of my brain. Now she drops the injection needle  and picks up tiny saws and I fight hard to stop her from doing her work…. And then I wake up from this horrible nightmare.

"ADE'S JOURNAL", 67

  From Frying Pan To Fire. Just like that, she became brainwashed. Just like that, she becomes a convert. And just when I thought it could not get any worse, I see that person from my past.
Khadijatu's daughter has grown and hugs me as if she has known me all her life. I was a little confused and then I hear her voice, the voice of deceit. That friend that hates all you have and sets you up to marry her lover, I lost all the smile on my face and she looked like she wanted o pass out. With rage boiling inside me, j ask what she is doing in the hotel. The NGO she works for had a surprise party for their most dedicated staff, I was surprised it turned out to be khadijatu. But she said it was a name sake, that explains it all. She seems a d glows and says she follows and watches all my shows. I say nothing but just nod my head and set the alarm for tomorrow’s meeting with Daniel and our lawyers. I was civil and watched as she and her daughter walk away. I didn’t feel a thing because in reality, she was never my friend.

"ADE'S JOURNAL", 66

   Large bulbs of water hit hard at the makeshift house I build for my generator sets. The neighbors water tank is full again and overflowing and its making so much noise that it wakes me up. I turn on my phone and stare at the time, it’s just one in the morning. I grab my pillow with both arms and a sharp cry jolts me up and away from the clutches of sleep. That stupid cock has started crowing again and on the fence just right outside my bedroom window. You see why I love to sleep in my house and on my own bed.

"ADE'S JOURNAL", 65

Tossed into an ocean of smoking dreams, it’s time to wake up and scream. Knowing how hot the ice is, let me not let go of the burn that shocks me. Yet I push upwards and head towards the sun, trying hard to swim free of the shackles of time. Surfacing like a floating plastic ball, repelling words and replacing it with action. It is time, once again to spread my wings and fly. How?     First I will audit all that I have and then search, search far and wide for opportunities. The world has too many things luring you to focus on all of it at once, but to do this is to focus on none. I wonder if I am lying to myself yet again and giving myself false hope. I am definitely getting tired of getting stuck here again, in this same position. But without a self audit, how do I know where I stand or where I should go and the biggest qualms of them all. Where I should be. These three stages of ‘here’, ‘go’ and ‘be’, I must encounter to accomplish a task, the question is where do I start? Here can be anywhere and compared to others seems pretty good, but that’s me in denial.