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BLOGGER'S NOTE
Last year in the wake of the Nigerian Senate's apparent endorsement of Sani Yerima's predilection for child brides, a #GirlChildNotBride campaign got under way on Twitter, providing inspiration for today's poem.
In this poem, the persona bemoans the plight of child brides, a malaise in many societies in Africa and elsewhere. Enjoy the poem then afterwards, the sober video below from the Pulitzer Centre.
STILL BIRTH DREAMS
Yesterday, a prank played on bestie.
We walked and joked.
To school we went.
The books I loved.
The tests I passed.
The sun. The skies.
The mountain I adore.
What a beautiful world of love!
Dreams I have and I dare to dream.
Big Mega dreams of hope.
I'll build some things. I'll find some cures.
I'll lead the men. I'll conquer space.
I'll win my cases. I'll dig so deep.
I'll fly so high. I'll touch the sky.
My vision is clear. My will is tough.
My dreams cocooned in my mind's egg.
Delicate, fragile all at once.
My brain does grow. My body too grows.
Like a budding flower tending to full bloom.
Look forward to the day my dreams would hatch.
Then came the knock. Abrupt.
Insistent. Persistent. Merciless!
Oh which giant goes there?
What intrusion is this?
This scorching pain of metal slug,
Piercing my tender skin. My soul.
The Eggs of my dream?
Father won't you stop him?
Mother would you stand and watch?
Brother why can't you save me?
Neighbours why keep mute?
Madman Ara wailed about a mad law,
Hatched in Abuja prodded by a bearded goat.
Ara are these your tears of sorrow?
Is this why you cried?
Oh sad day filled with inglorious bastards!
Hope forever extinguished!
Like a slave. Sold. Betrayed. Denied.
Dreams stillbirthed by the callous thrust of a demented
groin.
An endangered specie, I become- the Nigerian Girl Child with
childhood lost.
An adult I am before a child I be.
Childhood gone with the perverse lust of bearded goats.
Uche Okorie (c) July 21, 2013.
*Dedicated to the Nigerian and indeed other Girl Children around the world.
