for the Chibok girls kidnapped in 2009 by Boko Haram terrorists, many of whom may never be found…

 

In my country we say “the fish that lives in water

will one day get boiled by water…”

And like that, men appeared, like evil spirits,

wearing darkness

and took us on a pilgrimage to

their hideouts in a forgotten forest.

We saw the canvas of life and radiant hopes

become smeared by blood.

Memories became our dwelling.

The laughter of siblings, a distant echo in

our heads, the arms of parents

decaying into hazy images on our retina.

Days grew into years and years into eternity.

We tried to run away, but our bravery had been

buried among the corpses of friends

wearing bloodied hijabs to the afterlife, dead prayers

on their lips.

Our minds ran mad in places where we knew

they would never be found again.

So, we learned how to hold rifles like babies 

and point them at each other like accusing fingers.

We learned how to let our grief fester in the womb

of our broken minds like an ever decaying foetus

that could never be born.

Biography

Adewuyi Taiwo is a writer and a geologist from Nigeria, who loves both sugar and tragedy, and hunts for poems on Google in his leisure. He thinks African superstitions, while fading away in theface of modernity, can be recycled into horror stories. His workshave been published on Writers Space Africa, Spillwords, WrittenTales, Naija Poetry and elsewhere.