PEACE FROM PIECES

fly pretty bird fly...

The following words are a searching souls attempt to tell a story she knows well but never had wherewithal to explain.
These words are the wreathing belly ache of a heavy mouth trying to do a subject, much needed justice. Over and over, she would speak, but her words were dusty feathers that fluttered to vanish with unknown winds.

She settled for nodding because her voice was too loud, but nine moons have passed. Tonight caged water will break in the open.

   If curious crowds gather at the market square, to whisper of a woman wriggling on the ground, lips moving indistinctly as she clutches her faded wrapper, tell them there is a reason.
There is a reason for my Grand Aunt Uchenna's Insanity, the same reason why she was hurled and bound in palm wine tapper ropes and stashed near the smokey kitchen of our family house in Ezinihite Ife. That unfortunate place where she was raped countless times by a shameless uncle who's name we do not mention with our mouth. fia! the gods forbid it. Poor Aunty Uche, if only you were with me in 2018 to watch Acrimony- we would chorus our frustration and purse our lips in agreement over ginger-mint and garlic tea gone lukewarm. Indeed you went through torture that did not have a name. Torture who's hands never wrapped around your neck and squeezed, who's fists never pounded your beautiful round face, torture who never fought you or for you. Torture that drove you mad by saying "I love You".

Daa'm Uche, it was the sorrow of betrayal that sat in your eyes when you bent,  head forward in the dust, legs ajar; regurgitating a dirge to the dismay of  early morning on lookers. Shaking their heads with one palm placed on the other to straddle bare chests and dangling breasts hidden behind tight wrap cloths.

"Oh she was so beautiful, Omaka!"
They spoke of you as if you were already dead. Yet there you were a shadow of yourself, a butterfly's shell.
If only I could visit you one of those nights when they dragged you in amidst your earthy chants of,
"Nnem ohh! set me free, I will not sing again!!" 

'It was your voice', they said that drew him to you. The beauty of well nurtured enterprise - fair with bright eyes. The seduction of innocence, promising youthful wealth.

                                                                 
                                                                - Uneasy Silence-

Ndewo Ma, I greet you from the border that distant generations cannot cross. It is the glistening crystals in your eyes that draw me to you. How they always looked as if you would cry and yet the streams stayed there, a dam between your lower lid and supple cheeks.

You laughed so hard as Ugochi bathed your only son, ''Keep Chika! keep him here..", -laughter- "You wicked souls want to take my son okwia?!'' -more laughter- "it will not work, give him! give him to me!!!", your bound hands stretched out in the opposite direction.

What type of love strips a woman bare? causing her mind to sojourn far and make a bed of ash and stone in a world that no one knows. What type of love puts her to sleep? leaving her body to roam with bare-feet on broken streets.

Think of her as a song.
 unseen but not lost

If she recognizes the cry of her own child, but cannot hold him then love has left a nursing mother barren. 

I want to hold you tight against the warmth of my heart, in hope that life we share will ever so slightly suffice. For what they do not understand, is when a woman gives her all, it is palpitating life she wants in return.

It is not fields of rice or acres of land laced with corn, it is not bags of cowries or endless rows of pearls and precious stone. no. The planting of Life beckons for Life alone. To break this pact is to incur the, "wrath of God", she can stand in the moonshine, bare breasted and purchase a curse for betrayal "gods of our land! deify me!!!''. Mba Aunty Uche, pray they set you free.


There is no use roaming the earth that so graciously tore sanity from you, earth that did not quake when you ran for safety under the kitchen table nor did it open up to swallow him the night his broken beer bottle missed your already bruised face.You were shielding your bulged belly certain that the blood you saw was your own. It was not. Where was the earth when you screamed loud and shrill "Kamsichukwu!!!'' , then a whisper "my baby.." and no more. You sat on the kitchen floor soaked in your daughters blood as you watched him run into the night. 

Tell the earth, ''Be Gone From Me!'' and raise both your feet in disgust until you fly away.

"Great God of our land set me free", from these chains of tradition that bind her feet so she cannot run.
Set her free, from the oath of silence that cages her daughters unborn
set her free, from kind evil that stings the depth of her neck to cause labored breathing.  Let her sing.

It is no longer her wish to be a goddess of pain. So turn her figurine into blood, bone and light to irrigate the deserts with living things. Let the Sahara produce lavender and oil palm, Ede and yellow bell peppers, uziza and lush bushes of scent leaf, let her daughters feed. Turn her sweat into crystal dew and her tears, clear rain to welcome the morning.

Give her easy silence. The kind that is not heavy.
Give her peace.

_______________________________

Dedicated to the woman who hoped till hope walked away
Your scents linger in our Spoken voices today.


_ In memory of every Girl and Woman who lost her life to Domestic Violence,
    Rest In Peace.