...
-Becoming
When the world unravels before you
And even your dreams are crumbling stones
When everything you dare to touch is set on fire
And all around you is ash and smoke
Remember this
Rock bottom is a perfect place for rebuilding
Remember that you are your mother's daughter
Your grandmother's answered prayers
A whole bloodline of women who bend in response to raging winds
There is nothing broken here
Nothing damaged or discarded
Each scar is a badge of honour
Every misstep a victory dance waiting to happen
You are a woman becoming
Learning the complicated language of forgiveness
The intricate lessons of the universe and your heart
It's just a muscle
It needs exercise
You were born for this sort of heavy lifting
You were born one part saint, one part warrior woman
Loving yourself without shame
-Ttitlope Sonuga @titilope
📸@nana__joseph
...
Not all girls are made of sugar
and spice and all things nice.
These are girls made of dark lace
and witchcraft and a little bit of vice.
These are daughters made claw first
and story-mad, tiger roar and wolf-bad.
These are women made of terrible tempests
and savage storms and the untamed unwanted.
These are damsels made of flawless fearlessness
made of more bravery than knights have ever seen.
These are princesses made of valour and poison alike
and they are here to hold court as your queens.
― Nikita Gill
📸@nana__joseph
...
-won't you celebrate with me
won't you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.
-Lucille Clifton
📸@nana__joseph
…
i tell my mother
that the news of my barrenness
will meet me with a sigh of relief
and her eyes narrow in horror;
what is this strange creature
that I birthed?
did I bathe in the forbidden river
when I was pregnant with her?
-ulo
...
-kin
“Okele!” she called him and smiled. He did not know whether to laugh or cry. This name she called him as a reminder that he was her only kin. Her breath was getting fainter. He gathered her into his arms and looked into her face. “Won’t you answer me?” Her voice was hoarse and strained but she was determined to speak.
“Please save your strength.” he begged her, tears clustering in his eyes. “You have tried for me, let me go, Nna, let your mother go and rest.” He wanted to chide her, to ask her never to speak of leaving him ever again. But his soul was broken and his lips too tremulous to speak.
He pulled her into himself and cried, trying hard to breathe through the groans that poured from his belly. She lifted her frail hand and touched his face “Okele…”. She took his trembling hand and put it over her face “I will return to you”.
As he lifted his hand off her face, her eyes looked on at him - cold, distant, gone. Heaving, he rubbed his fingers over her face and made her eyes close. Staring into the darkness of the night, he let out a chilling shout, sending painful vibrations down his spine. Who was he now that his mother was gone? Where will he go? What will he do? Who will be his family?
-ulo
...
-ego oyibo
My youngest sister was born two years after my father passed. Pastor Oshoma was responsible, we knew, everybody knew. When the pregnancy began to show, we moved to the village. My mother's mother was livid, she called my mother a fool many times. However, when my sister was born, she was so beautiful that the circumstances surrounding her conception were inconsequential. We called her “Ego Oyibo”, foreign money. She was as bright as the sun, her eyes were nearly blue. Pastor Oshoma was half-cast, a very handsome man. This is why I do not blame my mother for giving herself easily to him. If I'm being honest, all the women in the church would have given themselves on a platter if he ever asked. He had that kind of charm. But he was married, and adultery was a sin, especially when the adultress was careless enough to get pregnant. He was a Pastor, therefore weak and vulnerable. She tempted him and he fell. My mother was very beautiful. In fact, my grandmother was of the opinion that the pastor had his eyes on her since before my father died. Which is why she was annoyed. "...that man would have given you half of that church if you asked, he would have thrown his wife and her useless sons out if you insisted!" she ranted the night we arrived at the village "...yet you chose to run away. How did I give birth to such a fool?" I did not understand what she was talking about until Pastor Oshoma showed up at the house when his daughter, my sister, was eight months old. She ran to him like she knew him. My mother had gotten a job in another city and had been away for two weeks. She had gotten an apartment and was coming to get us by the end of the month. He begged mama to give him her new number, but mama asked him to leave, or be baptized with hot water. He left. Two months later, news came that he died in his sleep. But, we all knew his wife killed him. My mother said she would have killed her too if we did not run away.
-ulo
..
Village Life
If I was born in the olden days
I would have been Olamma
The rebellious daughter of the king
Who fell in love with Obiagu
The Prince of the rival Kingdom
We would have eloped together
Obiagu and I
To a faraway land, a deserted place
We'd have built our own Kingdom
Our kids as Princes and Princesses
Lost men would find refuge in our Kingdom
Broken men rejected by their own
Ours would be a land of hope
For men like us - of wandering hearts
Who bear questions for tradition
🌹
...
There is so much I will like to say to you
But your heart cannot bear it
Things about darkness
And it's alliance with light
Things about life
And it's intercourse with death
These are the things I think about
When the waves in my head collide
I am not afraid of the chaos in this world
It is nothing compared to the war
That is endemic on my insides
-ulo
...
I randomly remember the Christmas my eldest brother taught my younger brothers how to use a rifle. Then I spiral down memories of how the older men in my family are attentive to passing down knowledge to the next generation of men. There is no such organisation among the women, as we are expected to be married off. 'Married off' always sounds like something not to desire, right? I know. But, there's no better way to say it. The idea of passing down tradition is for it to remain; what is the point of telling a woman where the ancestral lands are when she will soon be transplanted into foreign soil?
