I’M NOT ‘THE CHIBOK GIRLS’
I’m not ‘The Chibok girls’
I’m Aisha’s daughter, her third child
Tomorrow is my birthday and I want chocolates
Not a photo op with men in manes,
Men with Kalashnikovs for walking sticksI’m not ‘The Chibok girls’
I’m a student
Savouring pages of vintage books
Swotting now to ease sweating, at testing times
I dominate the libraries like ‘matter’ –
‘anything that has weight and occupies space’, we’re taughtI eat the freedom pie
You need to see the outspoken countenance of once reticent reagents
on mounting the podium of my pipettes,
Beakers,
And round-bottom flasks.I’m not ‘The Chibok girls’
I’m Luka’s twin sister
Raised by farm-hardened hands
I thirst for the taste
of his bragging breath
Mingled with our mum’s praying sweat
I’m a schoolgirl
At home in giggling company –
Joan’s and Maryam’s and Hannah’s and Hannatu’s and Jummai’s and Grace’s –I’m a girl
I wear no toga
only my name tag
and – atimes – a sanitary towel.
I’m not a bargaining chip
I’m not an index, some indicator
of bad governance or good governance or no governance!I’m not ‘The Chibok girls’
I’m a girl, not a chapter in history
I’m not someone’s defence shield
I’m not a tool in the gloved hands of a martyr-maker
Only the mouthpiece in a flute, my mum’s mirth-maker.I’m no Pearl Habour
Nor a trigger for a reprisal zinger.
I’m not someone’s prize:
What manner of conqueror gloats with a minor’s pubic heist?
I crave no place in folklore
But if I must enter it, it will be by my derring-do
Not that of hooded men
I shall not enter history from the pity page
I count my years as pedestals of dreams.– Anaele Ihuoma
I’M NOT ‘THE CHIBOK GIRLS’
Leave a reply