Ibiang Ayei
@ayeiibiang080407
1 year ago

TONGUE-TIED

We were fed from the same soil staples
that united us in one tongue;
Bound with the cords of dialect and customs,
birthed as siblings to the same ancestral sons
So we carved niches for ourselves
- the pure art and mastery of an artisan's forge;
The crafting of cultures,
tribes smith into goblets and plates;
serving rivalries as of an assassin's cult

The scourge of ethnicism,
the war on our identity and ancestry;
The scars of its aftermath that our bodies
still bore;
The engravings on the statues of our history,
the shots aimed at evening the score:

The facial cuts and tribal markings,
the intonations
- subject to mockery and verbal clashes
The fight for superiority that stubbed the peg
until the weight of the tent came crashing
- the chaos of a multi-dialectal society,
the burden
that its unfortunate frailty was forced to carry


It's true nepotism seduced us,
her fulsome breasts peeping from a broken seam
Tribalism,
just another racist hid under the same skin;
Bleached to feign brotherhood and kinship,
but still a convict of the same sin

So we denied the worthy populace of jobs,
became hindrances and clogs,
yet connected unworthy kinsmen to the same vacancies;
No wonder why they always called us "plugs"


We left the poor hoping
in whatsoever symbol his religion branded as 'gods'
So their prayers were curses
heaped over their deniers like bombs;
For every unjust denial, a grenade
For every night their tears soaked their dry morsels,
for every night the lantern's flame flickered in symphony with the cricket's serenade

For every raindrop their leaking roofs
hummed
as they huddled up in slums;
For every deceit that went out as mere propaganda,
for every lie our lips calligraphed as words;
For every opportunity their fathers lost for not
being able to speak our mother tongue;
For every shallow grave
that swallowed up the possibility of their having jobs



***



Written by: Ibiang, Ayei Okoi
Wednesday 11th August, 2021.
9:17pm
#Aï
#Nirclestories
#Poetry