.Our heads could fit in a shoe.
A short story by Kay Akappella
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To her emotion comes like a cruel
constipation thus she chooses never to feel .To cry she could but that part of
her died a long time ago. Jest doesn't move her, touch is infertile and fear
impotent; it nudges nothing of hers. They say she could stumble on cactus
unkind or lock an embrace with an angry porcupine yet maintain her smile even
though her flesh bleeds. Her black chocolate skin always erect with a poignant
numbness a fly’s tread brings no irritation to her. So as that pot-bellied man
yanks her head on the cold pillow while he loops and tears her every lace, silk
and laundry she lies there with an infinite falsetto of nothingness within.
You’d swear his breath smells a wee bit icky but her gates of disgust died too
thus she is wired in a lip lock madness with this goat of a man. Even the cruel
thrust of latex against her mahogany thighs brings no morsel of feel, whatever
it brings she treats like a boring cliché that will climax to a dearth. She bleeds,
but then what is blood?
Alieka, I remember the first day she
walked through the large arch doors of our quarters, a thin little girl with
beautiful lazy eyes, tiny feet, tiny hands, the sweetest dimples and the most
heartbreaking stare I’d ever seen. She was dark, tall and somewhere behind
those tear stained cheeks was a beautiful round face that sang our native song.
She had a slight swell in her belly just like all the girls that came to this place,
but she was different, there was a certain grace about her, a grace that
refused to be concealed by the tattered dress she wore nor by the bruised legs
that carried her through both the thickets of Mauri and the large arc doors of
the Zankazo camp.
Every afternoon at lunch I’d indulge in
an infinite gaze toward her while I stood guard at the dining hall door carrying
my Ak47 that threatened to dwarf me when it leaned against the wall. With a stubborn
stare I’d watch her converse with her plateful of gari soup .On the day she arrived she looked at it with no interest
at all and told it she would not indulge. On the second day she did likewise .On
the third day she leaned toward it but quietly insisted she would not devour.
Sometimes I’d watch her with spoon in hand slowly stirring this swinely cuisine
as if to coax the ancestors into telling her when this gory war was to end,
seeing the ancestors were deaf she’d retreat and leave the soup soaked it tear
and sweat. However as the days grew older and longer I’d watch her quietly
flirt with her food and steal a mouthful or two just to please the vacuumed
belly that nagged. The war was going nowhere, she was going nowhere and thus
she started surfeiting herself with the pepe
infested stew until the wrath in the hot dish drowned the one that dwelt in
this hell of a place.
There were thousands of us just like Alieka.
We’d been forcibly taken from our homes brought to this place to fight a war we
knew nothing about. When I close my eyes tight enough I can still hear the
sound of the bad tempered engines of the rebels’ vehicles descend from behind
the Mazwako mountains .The whole village would tremble as the end as they knew
it drew nigh. Mothers would dance in hysteria while fathers groaned in fear as
they knew their children would be taken away from them. You would see desperate
mothers hiding their children in granaries, some behind straw and mule in the kraals
somewhere, while some like goblins where put in those large beer pots but as
soon as the soldiers came the sobriety of child would ridicule the strokes of
hide and seek when infants sneeze, tilt or pull snot. The foul run was the
refuge to some but that naivety was all too obvious to Zankazo’s men, I climbed
the autumn kissed leafy Musasa tree but as soon as the first gunshot sounded I
fell to the ground like a bad mango. Some in shame where dragged powdered in
suit and ash while the plucky ones survived buried beneath dirt and manure with
the sweet potato heads with only a hint of air siphoning to their little lungs
. Like some cheap commodities we were thrown into these army trucks. We would
spend days squatted inside those trucks while the soldiers moved from village
to town to schools uprooting every child they felt could help Zankazo’s rebels
in the struggle.
Zankazo was the rebel leader whose party
had for a decade danced with the government .Two elections were infertile in bringing
his party into power. Zankazo as he saw it was chasing a dream that was on
steroids that always seemed to run faster than he did, thus if ever he got
close to it he would trip it and choke-hold it to submission. As the 1996 elections
brought no outright winner and a run-off election was declared he saw that as
his chance to pounce. He refused another election citing injustice in the
system as grounds for taking that stroke. He set a bounty on the incumbent tibu leader President Tiyawari whom he
accused of prejudice against his Zitu tribe then began his reign of terror. Thousand
died while more wished they were the ones who died .As the diamonds and gold
that breathed beneath our soils traded their sumptuousness for a bullet and a
lie our villages were made opulent in grave while city streets where littered
with donkey drawn hearses .Those borne to the “wrong tribe”, the tibu people, “the lesser” people, Tiyawari’s
people, those were obliterated to an extinction of dinosaurous proportions. Those
blessed with muscle and might had their lives spared for an extra spade in the gold
mines while those cursed with beautiful looks were raped to a limp.
The learned and the articulate inspired
some to a dream, a dream that Zankazo could be induced to a vote after all. But as soon as Zankazo heard the people were
starting to snore he slapped them out of that dream. In these parts of town the
machete is feared more than the gun itself, so with that military cutlery in
hand Zankazo’s men trimmed the hands and fingers of all who dared speak of the
‘V’ word. So as far as that dream of another vote was concerned our country was
left with a disturbing case of insomnia. Were every citizen was too scared to sleep
in fear that he might dream, too scared to wink because maybe just maybe he
might fall asleep and meet that dreaded dream.
So with the women in our country wounded
in heart and our men fingerless to either squeeze the trigger of a gun or fight
on the ballot turf it was kids like Alieka and I that who would serve the
agendas of Zankazo. I was to be a soldier and fulfill his “nymphly” needs and girls like Alieka were to be cooks,
maids and escorts and fulfill the wifely needs of Zankazo and his men.
They say Africa reinvented the civil war
Maybe we
did
For we seem
to constantly bend over pick our guns and rape our own selves
Our mourns to the rhythm
of Gregorian chant the world continually hears
It is that third world orgasm that crescendos to a
paralyzing seizure that makes sure we
make it to the news everyday
With our
drapes wide open the world watches as we
shamefully parade our nakedness
A pageant of our political pubics in public
Bosoms and ballot boxes tempered with in broad
daylight
We breathe deep, too deep
maybe, as we French kiss each other
in parliament
The rub of our
tongues too course on the other
But seems we can’t listen to one another
Guess we
got lost it in cadence –foreplay went too far
Now every man wants to feed his own filthy obsession
And surfeit his every perverted fantasy of greed
Today it puzzles me?
I could fathom hate, spite and these constant aches
when it was that “European Mistress” who killed us for our fields and mines
I could understand that maybe our black pigment was not his fetish
But why then is black killing black? Has the other discolored in time?
Maybe the other
did? Let me tell tale!
The Tibu people and the Zitu people shared a rib
Siamese twins incubated in the same colonial box
Suckled from the same breast
Some salty milk from the tears of a mother nursing a
bullet wound
We fought together, we cried together
We died together, we sang sad songs together
We were called baboons together,
damn it, we were ugly together
And that was the beauty of it- We were together
Then the bloody grave stricken honeymoon ended
In the other
we started to notice the little
things
The Tibu had a certain click thud in their native
lingo we could never learn
So we were taught to resent it
The fatter cows the Tibu had so we had to have them
Grass greener we wanted it!
So we
fought!
But I’d love to undress the cowardice in how we fought
Men in suits arm wrestled across burnished oak
tables
And thumb wrestled in word play
While little boys in Spiderman briefs
Drunk with lactose and innocence
Held guns and shot while they caught ‘stray’ bullets
with their skulls
They were child!
I say so small we were the sum of our
heads could fit in a shoe. But because of Zankazo we had to grow up fast,
really fast in fact very fast. On my 15th birthday I discovered a
hint of hair on my chin and a lush of the same above my ballooned lips, 3 years
too early I think. Girls like Alieka would have their first period only to miss
their next as their little wombs had become homes for tiny bastard without last
names who would then be dragged out using tongs and scissors.Their little
skirts adorned in floral print would have every fly pollinating its filth on
them. After these abortions the strain of their torn wombs would translate into
this terrible smell that repelled even the dirtiest of Zankazo’s soldiers. What
these men hated more than a Tibu man were those little girls who were trailed
by every fly in the province. Like used napkins there were thrown out of the
camp while the lucky ones were used as fodder in target practice. So assorted
were our pains and misadventures but the tears we shed from our pillows
streamed to the same gutter.
We were different though, while the
little ones would cry themselves to a hiccup sometimes, the older kids carried
themselves with an arrogant poise as if to say “we own this place”. Because of
the time they’d spent in this place they’d grown to be strong. They had grown into
this place .They would laugh, laugh hard. They had somehow found the concealed
thrill behind killing another human being; they couldn’t wait till it was time
to raid another Tibu village again. The older girls too had grown a familiarity
with this hellish pen. They had stopped torturing themselves with tears. Any
pain they felt they carried it around like it was one of their accessories.
They strode around in inch high stilettos that a certain Miss Pea used to
bring. With padded bras and slightly shapely limbs they had grown to become the
typical Zitu female, brawny spine-d and somewhat regular. They would toss their
hips from the east to the hills of Ikhechi just to nudge the attention of the bigger
boys .Their attention they got as they could be seen walking together laughing
,kissing ,drinking and doing every thing else that their juvenile minds thought
of.
Unlike the other older boys I was never
that brave .On my 18 birthday I spent the day crying till every flabby muscle
in my fat corpse ached. I remembered the pig knuckles, the black-eyed peas, the Lasutu soup that mama cooked on each of
my birthdays since I was 8. Episodes like these did little in shifting the
reputation I had gained as a cry baby.
They gave me a name, “Mama-mia!” they’d shout,
and then laugh. They said I was scrawny, weak and never deserved to be called
anything better. A certain young man “Mc Gyver” as he was know could kill a man
while he had a bun in chew, he was “the man” I guess. I remember names like ‘Bloodboil’,
‘Bullet’, ‘Kaleta’ and of course Schwarzenegger a 12year old boy from Mauri who
sat bum in sand and exhausted his rounds on a 60year old Tibu man during target
practice one afternoon, it bought applause and coarse laughter from the
soldiers and The Rev while it bought to Schwarzenegger.
The Rev was the commander in chief of
this pubertal brigade. They say he was Zankazo’s right hand man; he was the
closest we came to meeting the man whose war we were fighting. He taught us all
we shouldn’t know. Like how to shoot a Tibu man without being thrown to the
ground by the might of the gun or how not to look at the quizzical stare of the
dead female corpses. He taught us all we knew. If he never taught it we caught
it in the way he showed it. He could slap a boy to a fit or post him a stare
that leaked urine from his tiny prostate. Bloodboil though only 19 had the same
effect on a grown man.
In cruel reminiscence I recall The Rev
walking through the door one noon callously dangling several cats by their
necks.
“Kill” The Rev said in a high pitched shrilly
voice.
He had this tiny thin voice which did the
man’s beastly image a great injustice but nevertheless none did question his
awful nature.
“Kill,” he repeated as he threw the fury creatures to the
floor.
In groups of ten we were told to gather.
Bullet who was always pregnant with an eagerness to please The Rev ran and
caught one of the little animals and sunk his gun in its fur. However before he
could pinch his trigger The Rev slapped him to the floor to a sound that sang
to a pulse of a mighty door slam from a woman scorned.
“With your hands you worthless kasegu” he bellowed
Kasegu
was a word in our native Zitu parlance that described that white frothy scum
that gathers around a person’s eyes and lips when he slumbered in sleep.
With your hands? was the baffled look
that was thrown from one boy to the other with no answer coming from any.
While we all stood in confusion and
panic Bloodboil leapt at one of the cats, sunk his long fingers fiercely and
fearlessly in to the neon eyes of the cat. It belted to a ceaseless cry so
troubling I cried too. I could recognize its cries, they sounded like my mother
when I fell from that Musasa tree,
they sounded like my friend Dawa when he caught a cramp squatting in that army
truck, they sounded like my Alieka the first time The Rev held her against the
wall. Maybe I know that cat !.
“Kill, kill, kill” The Rev screamed in
that high pitched voice of his as the sound of the crying pussy seemed to rub
something within him. Something sinister, something heinous, morbid somewhat
morose but something that brought pleasant goose bumps to his black skin.
The cries continued and with each octave
gained my heart broke the more. In retaliation the mouser sunk its paws in his
flesh, he gave a brave groan. Bullet and Kaleta joined in and helped him by
pressing the cat down by its limbs while Schwarzenegger, Kone, Bingu, Idi and
Pinky a young “ugly’ girl from the Kawaga village stuck it with the mightiest
blows while tears streaked out of their eyes .The little pussy cried, they
cried, I cried ,we all cried. The Rev, The Rev just stood there and savoured the thrill till the little pussy surrendered to its death. Thirty four minutes
is what it took them, The Rev was proud.
Mama-mia as so appropriately named was
to demonstrate his porridge spine once more. My group and I were to take a
pitiable hour and a half till the stubborn pussy gave up its last life. We had
done it but The Rev laughed at our
strokes at wrath .It was the cries that got to me, anyway to show his disgust
The Rev resigned us to be security guards who ceremonially stood at the doors
and around Zankazo camp while the braver ones went to battle field- I cant say I had any
objections at the time.
However standing guard in the quarters
of Zankazo camp I saw more ruin that Blooodboil, Ripper and the rest of the
boys saw in combat. I would stand body bowed at the door because of that
military gadget that always hung on me that had almost made a hunchback of me
and watch Miss Pea drag the girls into these rooms that were later to be
attended by Zankazo’s men. While we had The Rev, the girls had Miss Pea. She
was the lady who groomed these little damsels to disrepair and in the supposed
etiquette of being a good escort. She made sure they always bathed, they always
smelled good for Zankazo’s men .She was also the resident enchantress who slid
cold metals into their tiny wombs when those little black barbies started to
grow inside. She’d taught them how to muffle a cry when the ache amplified. She
made them up, drew the frowns out of their faces with eye liner. She made them beautiful for those men but no
make up on God’s great earth could hide the tear lines that had stained
themselves to the little girl’s russet cheeks to an almost tattoo or stubborn
graffiti .The same way the unforgiving thorn weeds itself to the graceful rose
is the same way their pain clung to their tiny beautiful selves ,it was there
to stay.. What biting wit and swinely courtesy it was that they adorned them
with expensive varnish and mascara. Splotched them with manicure and pedicure
then bruise them. They prepared them like turkey yet they consumed them like
roadkill!.
I remember what Miss Pea did to my
beautiful Alieka. She made her wear a black thick ugly wig that covered her
skull and robbed me of her handsome eyes. The filth of make up was all over
her, her lips smudged in red lipstick and her mug powdered in a thick repulsive
pigment of bronze. Apparently that was how Zankazo’s men liked their girls.
They had to be made less childish but that is all they were childish ,flat
chested beings whose limbs could hardly lock a full embrace with a teddy bear
but they were now forced to stroke and cuddle with potbellied men. I know their
song:
sad little damsels in
distress, hearts Humpty Tumptied and trampled by all the king’s men, oh little
beauties with beastly thoughts who now wonder if Snow-white was ever pure or if
Cinderella did kiss a frog that changed , for the frogs they kissed only got uglier .Maybe they lied to me, fairytales
are a bunch of kasegu they’d say .what glass slipper fits these troubled feet.
Goldie locks and Rapunzel would never let down their hair if they knew that in
a certain castle in Africa an ugly man sinks his filthy fingers in my wooly
hair. Tell me! , was little red riding hood the lady with the scarlet letter? Just
my metaphysical supposition . Maybe she was! Then there is Santa Clause, that
fat potbellied man whom I always wondered on how he gets down that tiny chimney
to leave the gifts for those white kids .I heard he wiggles himself down that
narrow trench till he achieves his mission. That tale I believe. When my brave
murs turned to hellish cries I would beg for my Santas to stop but I remembered
Miss Pea telling me that there is nothing a little spit and wiggle could not
achieve. I hate fairytales!
Miss Pea! , beyond her cruel demeanors
there was something about her that made me even more edgy. She had a hint of
the devil. She was placid , beautiful and comfortable. She never showed any
emotion whatsoever. She just never did. She was always appareled in a short
little crimson number that told tells with none amusing. You’d swear she had
jumped out of a lewd movie the kind that keeps the perv warm in mating season
and the complaints commission in business. She occasionally wore these shocking
pink stockings that wrapped her poor anatomy yet raped every simple eye that
dared to stare. The other older boys loved watching her stride across the
courtyard every day .They’d whisper among themselves then throw a quiet whistle
toward her before running to hide behind the dining hall. She liked it maybe
but maybe not, however she always made sure she passed through the same aisle
everyday. She was pretty though, but she wasn’t my Alieka.
One day I joined in the whistle game,
thought it would be fun to play on the impish and naughty side for a change, ok
I lied! Bloodboil forced me to partake!. As the whistles went out on that day
we all ran for cover before I felt a mighty blow on my jaw that sent me to
whence I came. It was Bloodboil who had punched me. I staggered to the back and
fell spine down on the ground. Miss Pea turned and looking at me gave me what
looked like an infinite stare then laughed and walked on. She laughed. She
could laugh?
Bloodboil and the rest of the boys
laughed too, I didn’t. I had whistled at the devil and she saw my face. Who
would laugh?
………………………………
“
Hey! Mama-mia” came a voice from behind
me one afternoon, it wasn’t the first time I had heard that voice. Actually I’d
heard that voice a thousand times since the Miss Pea episode but every time I
turned there was no one. However today there was.
“Come here” the owner of the voice said
Being the puppy I was I run toward her
wagging my AK47 around my cramping neck?
“Come to my room after supper, I need
you to fix my bulb”
Supper came supper went and I went to
Miss Pea’s room.
Walking into the room a pervading scent
of cheap perfume meets me.
“Get on that chair and fix that bulb” a
voice comes from beneath the murky gloom.
I peruse through the dark till I stumble
on the chair which I mount on. After a tilt or two the light comes on and as it
does I somehow do too as I see Miss Pea laying on the bed supine in seamless apparel.
I stutter to say nothing then I close my gates of sight only to steal another
look before she walks towards me accompanied by that stare again.
I feel my spine freeze beneath my sweaty
back as she holds me by the hand.
“What strong hands you have, you should
have gone to battle with Bloodboil and them".
I love what I hear but I’m not sure I should.
But I am a virgin to such compliments, 4 and a quarter years in this damned
place I slept betwixt insult, curse and a mock.
You are strong “she says as she leans
over and rests her thick red lips on mine. I’d done this before, years ago at
the stream with a girl named Tabugu and I had dreamt of sharing such a moment
with Alieka. We share a cold muggy kiss and my eyes I keep wide open all the
while .There is something about kissing the devil that makes one uneasy and
disturbed. You are not scared that he will bite no are you scared his breath
tastes toxic. One is scared that it could be everything that you dreamt a kiss
should be. One is scared of the thrill and pleasures it could awaken and before
you can retreat or sidestep you are pleasured to your sin.
“Stop” I say as I pull back and head
toward the door. Mama-mia is brave after all.
“You stop” as she moves towards me and
looks me straight in the eyeball. That stare!
I sheepishly look up toward the ceiling
then fix my eyes toward her belly button locale for a mini second before my
chin hits my chest and I look to the floor.
"Look at me", she says as she harshly pulls
up my head with the under side of her palm
I look at her; I see the wrinkles around
her eyes, the fold on the corner of her nose, the space between her teeth. I
see the little pleats on her drying lipstick and the crack of her heavy make up
but of all the folds and faults on her face the one that troubles me most is
the one crease between her eyebrows. She is angry.
Like a dog in heat she was going to get
want she wanted whether I loathed it or not. If she failed to convince me she
would coerce me to submission so I might as well stop debating this
proposition. Resolved; she wanted to have a 17 year old boy for herself that
night. Because of the person she was, heartless, callous and for the things she
did to my Alieka I was forever going to argue the negative .I would not
indulge. However when she started to stroke and nudge my veins of sin puberty
set my members in disarray. My mind remained resolute on the negative but my
body moved with the affirmative. I spent the night with Miss Pea.
“Oh God what have I done?”
“How have I allowed Miss Pea to hold me
like that?”
“Did I allow her?”
“Did she really force me?”
“Why did I not scream like the coward I
am?”
“But then who in this place would have
come to my aid?”
“Did she perhaps give me that fleshly
fungus that AIDS itself to one’s blood?”
“Will I die?”
“Maybe I will, maybe I should have used my
chubby legs to toss her aside?”
“Maybe not I would have died?”
They say insanity is a space where you hear
too much of yourself talk, Miss Pea had just taken me to that space.
………………………………
She led me to her room every other night
too. She’d weed her boney limbs around me and steal all she wanted. She’d speak
in soft supple tones yet I’d see that crease between her eyebrows if I dared
object to any of her suggestions. For some awkward reason she make me sip on
her wines while she also let me gobble down her chicken Lasutu stew. The latter I did not object to as it was a welcome
change from the bitter gari soup we
ate at the dining hall. I loved the food, I hated her but she loved having me
around.
I followed my own foot step and those of
some other boys to her room till a year elapsed. However I started getting
these aches and pains in my chunky body. I convinced myself that in time they
would stop but see time only respects God and wine and thus the pain only
intensified. Despite the Lasutu soup
that I occasionally consumed I started to see a thinning in my hip. Regardless
of the pain, I still had to attend to Miss Pea and the rest of my duties in the
camp. The Rev and Miss Pea never did tolerate scrawny tendencies especially
from us the older boys. So when ever Miss Pea or The Rev summoned for me I
would bite my lip, send my pain to a distant land and do what was expected of
me. Like Alieka and the rest of the lot I had to learn how to kill the child in
me. It’s the child within that feels,
that cries, that hurts and it is that child that had to die for ‘me’ to live.
One afternoon I put a gun to my head and thought of triggering myself to
eternity but nay that is not how you kill the little child within. I had learnt
from Alieka and Bloodboil that you laugh, laugh hard till insanity drowned the
pain that this child holds. Another way was to stare at walls and let dawn
threaten before you could wink by that time the child inside would have
forgotten how to breathe.
Then there was the white stuff that The
Rev and Bloodboil so so loved. They smoked it till their faces turned cold and
lifeless. Bloodboil gave it to me too. It killed the child faster than any
other thing did. I hated how it gave me headaches though. It also gave me this
infinite itch that kept me scratching for hours. When I was too scared to shoot
it made me calm and brave. When Miss Pea gave me that stare it made me smile
not tremble. It had this power I could never fathom. Though my flesh was stuck
in these earthly realms my mind would roam in terrestrial spaces. Though heaven
and hell are miles apart this thing carried me through both as though these two
spaces were contoured by a fine line. My laughs lived on the edge of a
breakdown, my cries and my smiles disturbingly lived in the same moment while
my highs dangerously flirted with my lows you’d call it peculiar, queer,
borderline insanity. One morning I smoked it and smoked 5 Tibu men, 5 Tibu
females and 17 Tibu infants. It is on that day that we buried Mama-mia and
Gravedigger was born and he lived in the same shell that that coward dwelt.
I stopped standing on doors and went to
the battlefields. When Gravedigger came id convince myself that killing a Tibu
man was better than killing those cats back at the camp, for those pussies at
least killed the large rats that bothered in the hostels. When Gravedigger
visited me I would become a sprite on steroids, I would shoot a Tibu woman twice
because I hated how her corpse stared back at me when she lay on the ground.
She had Miss Pea’s stare. When Gravedigger came I never thought twice on
shooting a Tibu damsel. I couldn’t bear seeing another ‘Alieka’ turned to a
zombie.
See, though Alieka still treaded these
forlorn corridors of Zankazo Camp she was never there. Though we sang no sad
songs nor lowered a russet casket to the hollow dirt we buried her a long long
time ago. To Alieka emotion came like a cruel constipation thus she chose never
to feel .To cry she could but that part of her died a long time ago. Jest
didn’t move her, touch was infertile and fear impotent, it nudged nothing of
hers. They say she could stumble on cactus unkind or lock an embrace with an
angry porcupine yet maintain her smile even though her flesh bleeds.
Her black
chocolate skin always erect with a poignant numbness a fly’s tread brought no
irritation to her .So as this semi-potbellied man yanks her head on the cold
pillow while he loops and tears her every lace, silk and laundry she lay there
with an infinite falsetto of a nothingness within. You’d swear his breath
smells a wee bit icky and it could inspire a vomit but her gates of disgust
died too thus she is wired in a lip lock madness with this goat of a man .Even
the cruel thrust of latex against her mahogany thighs brings no morsel of feel,
whatever it brings she treats like a boring cliché that will climax to a dearth when this man curls his toes. Though I’d spent 4
years in this place I had never had spoken a word to Alieka, so on that day as
I looked into her eyes that looked straight into mine while she lay beneath me
sipping my every angry breath I wished she would one day forgive me for the man
I had become.
The end
Plot, characters,
places and names are all fictional but depict the reality of many children in war
torn regions around the world. The psychological wars that ensue in their minds
are far vicious than the rubble and the ruin that is seen in the battlefields.
–
Kay Akappella
What If – A New Mother’s Mantra
What if you come too early, what if
you never cry, what if you have only 9 fingers and toes, what if – I can but
try.
What if you get too cold, what if
your skin is dry, what if I don’t know what to do, what if,
I can but try.
What if you bump your head, what if
you tell a lie, what if you bite your brother, what if,
I can but try.
What if you fail at school, what if
you never fly, what if you fall and dent your pride, what if,
I can but try.
What if you smile so broadly, what if
you laugh out loud, what if your wildest dreams come
true, what if – I know I
tried.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f2/Crying_newborn.jpg/320px-Crying_newborn.jpg
Motherhood and PoetryPoetry about motherhood has been popular across many cultures and through many eras. Western poets have moved on from an emphasis on the ‘modern mother’: the mother that does everything in a superhuman way, whether that be a tired, harassed and busy mother, a new mother, a mother with many children or a working mother. Poetry now is trying to remind us that the mother is another human being, that they are in individual, a wife, a child too. Katherine Edelman’s poem, A Busy Woman Dreams captures this in a unique and fresh way. The tenderness that comes with being a mother is also a key part of poetry about motherhood. In many cultures, the mother is almost given a mystical status, she is someone to be awed, to be exemplified and respected. Children believe that a simple kiss or a rub of an affected area can take away their pain, that their mother is always right, is all seeing, all knowing and all encompassing. Other adults who are, not themselves parents perhaps see that a mother is almost inhuman, surviving on few hours sleep, with constant interruptions and still holding a house, a relationship and a job together. Other mother’s believe often that all other mothers are doing a better job than they are, regardless of any actual evidence that this is the case.
In the current difficult economic and political climate, it can be really important to focus on the mother’s role and the strength and presence that she has. ‘For my Mother’ by May Sarton describes the mothers as being both a creator and a lion-heart. Communication through prose or poetry can really help protect both our mental health and physical and financial health too, and remembering the message from Rudyard Kipling’s Mother o' Mine, that whatever you do, whatever happens in life, if you lose your job, get into trouble with the law, if your debts have built up and you are protecting from repossession your home, a mother will forgive and love you no matter what.
What If – Analysis
With my poem, I have tried to capture the essence of what motherhood is about. So many poems are written about just how wonderful it is to be a mother, or are a tribute from the poet to their own mother, and not all of motherhood is like that. Worry, anxiety and tiredness are a part of a mother’s daily life. But there is one overriding emotion that comes from every honest account of what it is like to be a parent and that is guilt. Every mother says that they feel guilty, no matter what they do, worrying about whether they are making the right choices, giving their child the best start in life and yet we can only do our best, and in 99% of cases, that is plenty good enough, allowing ourselves a reminder of what the positive potentials are can really help to inspire a mother at any stage on her journey. A mother has a phenomenally important role to play, and the potential for long-lasting impact. The use of repetition is symbolic of the repetitive nature of parenting, and also of how important repetition is for a baby’s development. The questioning nature of the poem is designed to spark thought and discussion with oneself and to remind you that it’s ok to question things, but to not focus just on a worst case scenario but on the best case scenario too.
[Photo by Melimama]
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Annie Hardcastle is a freelance writer from England who has settled down and become a mother now with two beautiful boys but spent much of her twenties travelling in Asia. She saw a real beauty in mothers across the world, raising their children in a totally different way from a Western mother but with the same worries, love, and determination always there to see.
Mgcini Nyoni Self Interview
Self interview by Mgcini Nyoni, Poet, Playwright and freelance writer based in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. With poetry published in FIRE IN THE SOUL 100 poems for human rights (New Internationalist / Amnesty International UK 2009), Intwasa Poetry (Amabooks, Bulawayo 2008), Poetry for Charity Vol 2 (Nigeria 2008). Creative director of Poetry Bulawayo
Q: Why poetry?
A: Poetry liberates you. There is no right or wrong way of writing poetry, really. I remember Loyd Robson saying you can paint a picture and call it poetry.
Q: Sounds confusing
A: Only if you don't understand poetry. I don't appreciate hip-hop so I was a bit confused when a hip-hop person was trying to explain that there is good shit and bad shit.
Q: But hip-hop is poetry
A: What aspect of life is not poetry?
Q: What inspires your poetry?
A: Life. Like if I am thing that I would love bacon with my bread and I can't afford bacon; It sort of formulates into a poem, like:
they are eating
bacon and eggs
in the state house
The man in rags
eating burnt bread...
Q: That's political
A: Life is political. Everything can be traced back to a politician either doing well or messing up. Most times they are screwing up.
Q: Is there real hope for poetry?
A: The numbers of artists who write poetry is increasing. And because everyone is literate, there is a lot of self expression using poetry. Poetry Bulawayo is rying to give all these people a platform.
Q: There is a sort of rebelliousness associated with poetry.
A: Not really. There are people who always take things too far in anything: eating, sex, poetry...
Q: Last word.
A: Brace yourselves, the poetry movement is about to take over the world.
