Undeath of the Artist

I bet you wish that I could say
That I regret that I spent
All those hours lying awake
Writing late into the night
Unaffected by the dumsor
that plagues your days
because my brain works on candle-light

But still I wrote
And still I write
And you're still irate
But that's alright

You spent a long time wishing for my demise
You shot the art in me down
But still I rise
From suicide, I'm back to life and this
This is the undeath of the artist.

I used to misplace my priorities
Linking my thinking
to people who placed their opinions upon mine: super-imposition.
Contention followed
Resentment swallowed
all the pride I could have had in my life
Who cared if the letters
on my report got better?
If my grades depreciate
Like the state of the cedi?
When you're seeing A-stars
You're surprised that I see Ds

Substitute math for art
And break my heart.
I had my eyes on the finish line, like: depart
Just
Hit the pass mark
to pass on
and pass out
I wished that I could pass out
Or pass on
from drowning
In self-doubt.
I felt like a sell-out
Betraying myself now
My soul said "I'm tired"
Was never inspired
My breath felt like labour
An unwanted favour
The predominant thought in my head was my death.

You spent a long time wishing for my demise
You shot the art in me down
But still I rise
From suicide, I'm back to life and this
This is the undeath of the artist.

For those of us pushed to practicality
The artists so far-sighted,
mortality
is the only thing that seems reasonable
For us to ever see.

If we are never recognized
For doing the things that put the fire in our eyes,
Then let the world burn.
It's not our fault that they
are short-sighted
But the truth is
They're only seeing through a caste.
If we are ostracized
For saying the things that we believe in,
Don't ever let them stop hearing about it.
We can feel bad that they claim that they're deaf,
But honestly, they don't deserve our deaths.
They spent a long time wishing for our demise
They shot the art in us down
But still we rise
From suicide, we're back to life and this
This is the undeath of the artist.

You kill creatives to create the haters,
the job-chasers and the money-makers
While we claim we're moving forward
Our employees are machines
Operating machines.
No life, just strife.
I look into their faces,
and practically all I can see is code.
The system
Convinced them
That making a living
Is only possible through this mode.

It's time to rewire
Re-kindle the fire.
The tablet we read from
Our 10 commandments
And it says, "Thou shall not commit murder."

The poet inside you spoke, and you heard her.
She's pleading for mercy.
Killing her is suicide.
It is life vs death.
Pick a side.

You spent a long time helping your own demise
Shutting the art in you down
But you can rise
From suicide, you can come to life, and this
This is the undeath of the artist.