Rebirth: A Collection of Poems By Kamgharida Ejiogu

Sayings

Betray the Salt

A tipped over salt cellar

An indication

A warning

An answer to the calls they didn’t pick up

A cry for the loud whispers they share when you walk by

An epiphany for the obliviousness that hid their schemes

A desperate plea for them stop disregarding your time and feelings

An annulment to the years you spent thinking you were friends

A tipped over salt cellar

Bottled and sandwiched into a simple saying about betrayal

Laughter

The banging of the rain

Hitting against the window

Was also as deafening

As the cackles inside.

A simple one-liner

Or a cheesy reference

Would erupt a room

Into incessant strings of Laughter.

Gee Willikers

My mother would always tell me

To stay away from words too colorful

For the vocabulary of a middle-schooler.

My once colorful palette

Dwindled to the few leftover words

My great-grandpa would say inorder

To censor himself around his great-grandchildren. 

Each time I cut my finger on paper,

Or take a little tumble,

An old fashioned, “goodness me”

Or, “Oh brother” slips

Rather than my traditional terminology.

I don’t mind the change, however.

In each “gee williker,”

I carry a bit of my great-grandpa.

Spel Chek

The squiggly lines highlighting

My supposed error

My inability to correctly string

Incoherent phonetics and rules

Together.

The constant contradictions

Of i before e

Except after c

The confusing pairs stealing

The originality of f

How one vowel 

Dominates the conversation while walking.

I hover over my error,

My inability to spell a simple english word

Sound out the intricate and complex combinations

That weave together a form of communication.

I right click the squiggles,

Conforming to the boundaries of spelling.

Rebirth

To be born

To live

To grow

To conform

To assimilate

To follow

To trap

To die.

Yet,

A sudden new thought

One unable to conform

Unable to box itself

In pretty packaging

And continue the generational cycle

Stricks the others.

An uprising

Perhaps a riot

Where sentences diversify

Structure holds no power

And something new is born.

A Renaissance.