NOAH'S ARK

Noah’s Ark

Saving words to build
my Noah’s Ark.

Writing while the oceans
flood the Earth.

The lines keep me afloat.
Day and night.

Like a life jacket,
there’s one for everyone.

Let’s light fire in the cold,
and share the stories untold.

Strength

Strength.
Strength isn’t what you have.
It’s something you find.
Yet, not missing.

Strength.
You think it comes from
inside of you.
And sometimes you think
it comes from outside.

Strength.
Like an oil, it runs out.
But like oxygen, it’s inexhaustible.

Strength.
Your Simon of Cyrene
when you can no longer carry
your cross.

A Door Below

Lying down there like
the debris of our past.
Down there, we find ourselves.
Left for the dead by our flaws
and failures.

Separated from what made us whole
but still moving like a headless
zombie. Wondering of what to do
with what is left of us.

Oh, we have hit rock bottom.
And now, we only want to climb up.
Clawing the walls of our life.
Hoping there would be something to grip on.
To hold onto. To pull us back to being whole.

What if there’s another way
down below?
Where the floor was only a sealed door.
Where gravity holds the same power as the top.
And breaking through puts us back on top—
where we felt whole.

Elijah Christopher is a lifelong creative artist, journalist, poet, and writer. He has contributed to several published works such as A Thousand Bubbles Rise (a collaborative poem celebrating Scottish poet Edwin Morgan), Boys Are Not Stones (anthology), To Borrow Screams From The Atmosphere (anthology), and USA’s DIAJ Magazine among others. Following his completion of a Generative AI course—one of the first courses of its kind, sponsored by the College of Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder, and signed by Professor Tom Yeh; Elijah is currently pioneering a project called The African Writer’s NotebookLM (TAWN) on YouTube—an integration of artistic creativity and artificial intelligence.