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Enitan Doherty-Mason

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The sacrifice
Simple Acknowledgements - Haj
Scorpion Tongue
Waste Land
Gate Keepers
Goodbye Cocoon
Nigerian Girl Child
Little Boy, BOOO!
Calling Our Men Back Hood Winked and Captured by the Phallus
Anger′s Fire

The sacrifice

The world belongs to me
Says she
Your life belongs to me
Says she
She says
She says.
You did not create me
Says I.
You cannot define my world
Says I.
I will try
Says she.
I dare you!
Says I
She dared.
She failed.

My life belongs to me
Says I.
Says I.
It was so ordained
Says I.
How do you know?
Says she.
I know
Says I.
I have always known.
Always known...
Always
Known that
You are not
My creator!
The die is cast
I will not be the sacrifice
Find another
Find another way

Simple Acknowledgements - Haj

Fashionably, I have done the necessary.
I have earned degree upon degree.
D.C was my Mecca,
Maryland, my Medina.
Yet I yearn for the soil…
That place that I know
Without knowing.
The land of my fathers

Mecca. Medina
My emptiness while full
I yearn for my place
I yearn for my place
Under Nigeria’s sun
This child of two nations
Longs for the one while in the other

One nation birthed me
The other raised me.
I cannot choose one over the other.
I love them both
A child of two nations
Torn apart by unbearable longing
Mecca and Medina is not enough.
I cannot leave one for the other.
Fill me with sunshine
Found only in my grandmother’s embrace

Scorpion Tongue

Why should your grandchildren come to you?
You constantly berate their mothers.
You do much the same to your own daughters
When will you learn that yours is good enough?
Why should your children come to you?
You are never satisfied with what they do?
If God came down clothed as man, could even He satisfy you?

Eyes that search for ill will always find it.
When you look for good you will notice its abundance.
The life you live is the legacy you leave behind.
Open your eyes and look through another’s for a while.
You may find that you too do not like the person you see.
The face you turn to the world is what the world sees.
What you think yourself to be may not be who you really are

Waste Land

Hatred like hot oil dropped on an eyeball
Burns and destroys.
Unyielding.
Nightmarish.
Ignorant.
Isolating.
Where tolerance could have built a home.
Hatred has taken hold and created madness.
It devours all that lies in its path.
Hatred, like war makes no sense.
Yet it lives,
Robbing us of words and leaving lives empty.
Hatred is deaf.
It is a tongue without an ear.
Hatred is empty.
Hatred sets it’s own agenda.
It seeks only to create wasteland.
Hatred cannot listen lest it hears the truth.

Gate Keepers

Who is recording our epics?
Who has ensured that all the history captured in our past stories will be in our future?
Where are the custodians of the way we thought about things and how much we have grown?
Where are the archives of our true heroes and the annuals of our defeat?
Must our history always be unearthed like clay pots in Calabar after torrential rains?
Must we give other men permission to guess at our past and consequently forecast our future?

Goodbye Cocoon

Butterfly emerging from its cocoon
My time has come.
Weak wings
Never tried
Let me try

Pushing outward
Growing stronger
Pushing
Let me try
Release me
Let me soar

E-m-e-r-g-i-n-g Emerging
Pushing
Forcing
Strengthening
Solidifying
Stretching
Spreading
Freedom
Flight
Height
Roarrrrr!

Nigerian Girl Child

Brown skin
Brown hair
Hints of red
Snub nose
Almond eyes
Sleepy brown eyes
Chubby child
Loved child
Girl child,Yes.

Young girl
Grown men
On the prowl
Young girl
Dodging men
Hellish men near
Friend’s dad!
Dad’s friend!
Old men too!
Uncle’s friends!

Young girls
Nigerian girls
Need safety nets.
Watch your young girl
While hellish men prowl

Little Boy, BOOO!

Run on home.
Your house isn’t on fire. Your children aren’t born.
I don’t run pre-school for errant young men.
Now learn this one lesson…
Stop calling my name

BOO TWO

You say your passion is on fire.
Fool that you are
Your flipper is flapping. Your good sense is gone.
Now learn this one lesson…
Stop calling my name

BOO TEA

It takes two to tango
Of course you don’t know
Your wife is my sister
Do tell her hello.

Calling Our Men Back Hood Winked and Captured by the Phallus

The stripes on our feminine backs are too often inflicted by the phallus.

Had our men truly been present they would have been able to protect us.

We take turns beating each other with a weapon that grows back wherever and whenever the need arises; a weapon not much different than an earthworm which reconstitutes itself after some incident slices off its the tail end.

Had our men truly been present they would have been able to protect us.

Matrimony continues to yield single mothers coupled to the phallus yet completely devoid of feeling; devoid of joy. Victims of matrimony become long forgotten participants in a contest where the only prize is a phallic parcel long forgotten by its original owner.

Had our men truly been present they would have been able to protect us.

Who stole our men and replaced them with seed sprayers.fertilizing machines?
How did so many of our women become sperm receptacles and baby making machines?
When did it become law that the only evidence of matrimony should be a metal band; a name, and a child and nothing more? When did women agree to surrender humanity for an opportunity to procreate?

Had our men truly been present they would have been able to protect us.

We have been taught to ring victory bells because our eggs have been fertilized by the phallus. We have been told procreation completes our womanhood. How can it be that the only credit a woman gets is for being a producer of children and not a life partner?

Had our men truly been present they would have been able to protect us.

Women have been misled to believe that children must be obtained by forming alliances with the phallus at any cost.

Women bait women
Sisters lay snares for their sisters
Simply for that opportunity to be christened by the almighty phallus

Had our men truly been present they would have been able to protect us.

Can you remember when women were more than receptacles and our men were more than phalli? It was on such a planet of women and men that children were born to be much more than ammunition.

Will our men ever truly be present so that they can protect us?

Anger′s Fire

YOU - the one
For whom the world is ablaze
YOU - Angry one
Ablaze with fire, pain and hunger
YOU - fiery one
Do not be consumed by the FIRE ignited by your anger The passion that sparks your anger can Spark creativity Ravage destructive Quell discord Light paths Signal hope