Even Though Poem by Emmanuel Damilola Adeyemo

Even though...
Its walls are cracked,
Its furniture pieces are obsolete,
Its overlying metallic papers are perforated
And stained with reddish-brown ink,
Its sleeping beds are no better than the hard brown earth,
I still choose my abode
At Mr. Ni Geria’s drowning castle.

Even though...
She has corruption for beauty,
She’s gorgeously dressed in debt’s gown,
She bathes daily with poverty-infected water,
She enjoys brutal torture from hunger and malnutrition,
I still choose to marry
The confused green damsel
As my only wedded wife.

Even though...
He has names like developing, third world...
He’s the key leader in the unemployment saga,
He’s endowed with a special ability to endure blackouts,
His roads are beautifully designed with deadly potholes,
Still I choose my country,
My disease-susceptive country.

Like a drought-inflicted ground longs for rain,
I patiently await that day,
When terrorism will be described in a past form,
When we’ll no longer be cajoled as Africa’s giant,
When my people will see corruption as a venom,
When our unsure future will become secured.

Because one thing I know for sure,
Like a truth that can’t be wrong,
Is that that day is fast approaching,
Fast approaching in a bird-like metallic monster.