BEFORE I KNEW TOO MUCH

At seventy-five, crowns shine quieter
the laughter of years now a soft murmur of rain.
Nigeria too is sixty-five,
and sometimes, I wonder if she sighs in her sleep,
dreaming of the days when her roads were still promises,
when her anthem still believed its own lyrics.
Is life really a tale told by an idiot?
Adenirokun, you’ve seen seasons bloom and fade
tell me, is wisdom the prize of pain?
Or does the crown grow heavier only when it knows too much,
when the sea beneath its name forgets how to dance?
And me, I’m twenty-eight,
a poet flipping through Booktu dreams,
still searching for the line that rhymes with peace.
I wonder what you’d say of my faith in pieces,
my freedom that feels like a bar inside the mind.

II.
Once, I thought Heaven lived above the clouds,
and that old age was a fair trade for kindness.
Once, I believed every disease had a cure
until I read of one that didn’t,
and sat in my father’s compound,
thinking too much for a boy of twelve,
till an older tenant asked if I’d gotten someone pregnant.
I laughed — the kind of laugh that makes the world flinch.
I was a stupid, happy child
sheltered by my father’s fences, both brick and heart.
The world was red roses and cartoon suns,
a country in her thirties,
shiny and naïve as the promises on her flags.

III.
Then came love
the kind that smelled like Emeka Ike and Genevieve,
that wore white dresses and soft Nollywood rain.
Ramsey Noah kissed Rita Dominic
and we all believed we’d grow into that kind of forever.
Now, love costs airtime and data,
a shared password, a sponsored post,
a “good morning” lost in WhatsApp blue ticks.
I miss the love that didn’t check bank alerts,
the one that came with chasing each other on sandy fields,
with counting stars instead of followers.
Was it love that changed
or just the child in me that stopped believing?

IV.
Sometimes, I envy you, Sir Adenirokun
your laughter feels older than worry,
your wisdom still wears a smile.
How do you carry seventy-five years
without bending beneath their questions?
Do you ever look at this 65-year-old child called Nigeria
and think “Ah, she too will learn”?
And what of God?
Does He still sit by the window of your thoughts?
Because mine sometimes hides behind deadlines and doubt.
If knowledge truly brings grief,
how did you learn joy and still laugh like youth?

V.
I have too many questions
about love, about God, about rent and peace,
about whether we are the living or just the unburied.
If I shared them all, we’d have not a poem, not a book,
maybe an endless argument between hope and reason.
But perhaps that’s freedom
to be behind bars and still sing.
To be twenty-eight and feel the years breathe down your spine,
to be seventy-five and still curious,
to be sixty-five and still in love with possibility.
Maybe that’s the meaning,
hidden in your name, Adenirokun
a crown that owns the sea, but still listens for waves.
And maybe when my years too reach seventy-five,
I’ll finally rhyme peace with living,
and whisper, smiling that before I knew too much,
I was free.

Promise Osekponole

Promise Osezua Osekponole, aka Ghostwriterr, a medical researcher,  poet, songwriter, and author of the debut book War is Uglyis a native of Edo State, Nigeria. In “Before I Knew Too Much” he reflects on growing up in Nigeria: from a child’s wide-eyed wonder to navigating love, faith, and a nation at 65, all seen through the eyes of a curious youth still trying to learn and adapt.