By: The Rhapsodist

EVERY GIRL-CHILD IS A PETAL OF WITHERED FLOWERS

There were nights I saw my sister eating her
Fingernails, drinking from her teardrops as they
Rolled down her eyes, down her cheeks_ into
Her mouth. She would stay awake all night, reciting
The chaplet of mercy_ the sorrowful passion. Then,
She ends with the litany of the blessed virgin Mary
And begins to mutter the name of the first boy
Who broke the walls of her flesh and planted
A seed inside her body; a seed which will later be
Called a child. At times, I hear her cursing
The heavens for making her a woman
(For making her a slave) cause mother tells her
That every husband is a god in human flesh, thus,
They are to be worshipped by every woman.
And every girl-child must learn to be a woman_
Say_ to be a woman is to bury your rights
And place yourself where the society demands.
To be a woman is to swallow your voice, and widen
Your ears to what-so-ever a man has to say.
To be a woman is to be called a flower, but never to
Be treated like one. To be a woman is to be loved
Only when your body is needed for a ritual of lust.
To be a woman is to accept your limitations in life.
And my sister holds onto these fallacies in her soul,
And just like every other girl, she too has become
A withered flower, believing her body is a temple of
Pain, built for the pleasure of the opposite gender.
So, not only does she seek for pills to terminate
What grows in her womb, but she now seek for pills
To ease her burden_ to sway out of existence.
Behold! When a girl-child is born, it means_
A labouring machine is born, it means_ a prisoner
Is born, it means_ a sex toy is born. And that is
To say_ when a girl-child is born, a victim is born.

SPELLING PEACE FOR BROKEN SOULS

I borrow tears from mother’s eyes and weep out metaphors from my
pen, sending them as an anodyne for broken souls. I see in her face— the
portrait of suppressed female voices, fading away with their potency and beauty
in a total absence of listening ears.

Mother is a broken body same as every other woman out there, her
presence tells a story of girls whose wounds never found cure until their
remains were eaten up by grievance. So today, I put my feet in their
shoes, weeping out a poem with a lovely voice of compassion.

In my lines, I sail through the heart of a saddened girl who defines love
as a rough path. I split out ink and spell peace, scribbling on her broken
fragments then placing them still until her soul becomes whole. I take
her hand, stimulating her with words like a kiss and she begins to love again

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Daniel Aôndona [The Rhapsodist] is a lover of arts and culture, a versatile award-winning writer who hails from Konshisha, Benue state, North-Central, Nigeria. He is a proud member of Hilltop Creative Arts Foundation [HCAF], a creative writing mentor at The Newborn Poets, and an editor at Words-Empire. Daniel writes from Abuja, with several works published on literary journals like; Synchronized chaos, Spillwords magazine, Arts Lounge, Words-Empire, Power poetry, The muse journal, Words Rhymes & Rhythms, World voices magazine, D’lit Review, Ta Adesa, and others.