Roseline Mgbodichinma

Art: © Opeyemi Matthew Olukotun (@opeyemiolukotun).

Chibok
A tribe of girls went
Missing while the government
Played monopoly with the terrorists that stole them
Some of them returned empty some of them died burdened
Some are still in harm’s way & others never returned

Uwa
I ask for mercy when I write poetry because here
God can turn to dust
How does a girl ask to be
Raped & mutilated, offered in front of a cross?

Tina
Any bus stop near home
Is shooting range
No one took the road in time
To tell her that standing is catfish
When the police is synonym for point and kill

Jennifer
When they say a girl is ripe
What they mean is - is she old enough for us to devour?
Here, it is carnival for a child to be abused by multiple men

Girls
& for thousands of daily unfolding cases
They ask victims for timestamps, locations & outfit styles
As though this inhumane invasion is some sort of feast

On ‘In my country girls disappear’

Gender-based violence and kidnappings have become increasingly rampant in Nigeria. Girls are being stolen and the government has proved sluggish in its pursuit for justice. Abuse and abduction of women and girls, from the kidnapping of the Chibok girls and beyond; there are hundreds of cases unfolding as the years go by. This poem was written for the girls and women that have been lost, brutalised and assaulted - written with the hope that one day this pattern of wickedness will finally come to an end.