Poetry by Christy Chris

We Are the Over Comers

We have come
From over the years
Bearing sheaves of history
History that was for us, a reality
Reality, that remains more than a reality

We have come
From over the years
Bearing memories
And lines engraved on the templates of our memories
Refusing to be washed by time’s heavy rains.

We have come

With irregular tattoos on our arms
Carved with impatient tips of acrid swords
From hands, too impatient to be schooled.

We have come
From the place where we gulped gallons of pain
Sweetened with the ingredient of hopelessness

We have come
From dining with our enemies
Where we ate the grains of sorrow
Served in the bowl of shame

Yet!

Our eyes remained alive

We refused the comfort of bending our knees
And remained unbroken.
As our hearts pounded insolently
Under the thin shield of our black skin.

We do not look like where we have been
We do not look like where are coming from
And we do not look like the battles we have fought
We are the over comers. And today,
With soles, firmly planted on the soil of freedom
We gift you a better morrow
Set on the sail of dawn.

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SPIRITS AND SHADOWS

The birds have forgotten to fly

And our shadows stand resolute

Unwilling to go with the night

Our children have long forgotten the language of laughter

For the wax fluently in the dialect of tears

Who will be the referee between 

The hungry spirits and angry shadows

For the sword must be drawn from its sheath 

Or else, we become breathing corpses.

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Christy Chris is a young Nigerian poet and most of her works are deep expressions of the prevalent situation in her country and of life and the world at large. Her works depicts an unflinching and undaunting hope for change and growth. She hopes to touch and influence lives by her writings. Christ Chris was the winner of the Okigbo poetry competition (2014) and the winner of ‘Scribble the future’ (2016). She was also shortlisted as one of the 100 best young African poets in 2018.

Her works are documented in her blog: abvnormal.wordpress.com