IXORA BY CHARIS💓🔥

    Maami told me they were like butterflies. Some had beautiful colours,some were enchanters while some were just the colour of the earth. She told me to love, to trust, to support and be good to whoever I called a friend. And to be honest I did. I loved. I supported,I respected and broke my back for friends.   But why didn't Maami tell me it was never going to be enough? Maami,another dagger you have plunged into my soul. Why didn't you warn me about the green eyed friends? You told me I could not walk alone. My path must be shaped by people and I . But I wonder if it was path shaping that made aunty Laide to climb up your matrimonial bed to sleep with your husband.      I wonder if those hurtful words Iya Modele uttered behind your back is path shaping too. I followed the instructions you gave me .Now blood drips down my head,bruises on my face. Because I trusted a friend. A friend who stabbed me with no remorse.     Maami I wanted ...

I wished Maami told me it was a wild river that hosted many competitors.That the river housed crocodiles,sharks and whales.That the octopus and numerous wild fish roamed this river. That I had to fight and sometimes kill to survive. How treacherous of Maami!  I wished she not only handed me warm clothes,the Bible and hot food in my belly. She should have handed me the dagger,made me an armour and told me to sometimes starve.That way my hunger would have been for things and not people. I would have had hate in my heart and not the sorrowful burden of love that tears me apart.  I wished she told me to embrace ìbínú  when she visited. Hosted ìgbéràgà with joy. Instead she told me they were vices yet I see the predators wield their swords well only because they had dined and mastered with them. Maami you have hurt me with your spiritual wisdom!   I wished Maami told me not to have a smile on all the time. I wished she told me to be cold, selfish and brutal. Now my body i...

AFEYINTOHS  Echoes! Blood on our fingers, mucus running down our noses. Snorts of echoing words freezing and hung in the moon lit sky. We don't know where we are running to. We have no idea where we are heading to this stormy night. All we know is that our house is on fire and our father held the light stick. Papa was a drunkard, the bottle was his best friend. He had no appetite for Amala,Okro and bush meat. He had no lust towards Akara olororo with steaming Ogi garnished with milk. No our papa was not a food junkie! His addict was captain Jack and schnapps from iya Jelili's shop.  Cold nights when every other family members gathered to share the warmth of blood ties. Our Baami chose the comfort of his beers and spirit. Our Mama was the one who carried the brunt of the rewards alcohol gifted to our father when he was intoxicated and in the realm of non coherence. Dislocated jaws, broken limbs, scaled skin . Still she smiled when he called her Iyawo mi when the rev...

A wide community in the city of Ibadan was where Maami chose to raise me.  A community which knew its own. Took charge of its own. Yet sometimes drank the blood of its brethren. A community where the heavy smoke of shisha and marijuana was how the omo igboro said "hello Baami" to the creator of heaven and earth. Where the round-breasted and slim-waisted girls swept their "face me, I slap your compound" while gossiping about the latest pregnant girl. The community that the dreaded Nero was birthed in. That is the community I was raised. My community is where the thief gets justification over the owner,Ọlù Agbọ́wọ́kà.  A community where display of heroism, bravery, and murder takes place in daytime. Where a nine-year-old boy knows who the capon of the "ẹrujẹjẹ Àiyé" is but is not afraid. Ọmọ Àiyé never gets eaten by their own.  In this community, I was washed and sanctified with the  boldness to speak my mind and call out the foolish man who tried to grab Ar...

Call me Ofure! Call me Ofure, if you dare, and let me show you what betrayal feels like. Look into my eyes and watch them turn golden from hate and pity, as I recount the tale of a girl who was forsaken by those she called her village, her friends, and her family. Tell me, as you walk along the jagged clay pots scattered around the bush path to the stream, what do you see? Can you hear the echoes of laughter from those who once called themselves my friends, but now gossip behind my back as I struggle to collect water for my family? Adanna and Okey, tell me, what sorrowful songs do the wives of my mother's clan sing when they raise the clothes of shame they have dropped on my cold body, lying silently on my father's corridor? Do they even care that I have been violated and shamed? And what marks and bruises have my envious friends and acquaintances wished upon my silent soul? Was my misfortune not enough for them to revel in? Call me Ofure! Call me Ofure, not out of courtesy, bu...