Aisha!
Ogunbanwo Oluseyi@oluseyiogunbanwo258714
24 days ago
Aisha!
I refuse to believe that I am ripe for his need,
My physique and mind are too fragile for his seed,
I detest the bandwagon of this odious tradition,
I share not the culture of an ominous tribulation
I reject the belief held by your religious creed
To our consummation, I refuse to concede
My plant is unripe and unsavoury to his taste
This questionable tradition I view with distaste
I am Aisha the defiant, positive deviant
Check me out and you'll find that I'm a teen
My voice will speak as my mind remains unshaken
Will keep crying till my world becomes brilliant
What tradition celebrates a child's hand in marriage?
What religion solemnizes a child bride on a carriage?
What society closes her eyes to the wedlock of a child to a septuagenarian?
How come the sages turn their backs on the child, a Nigerian?
Though my body is replete with the marks of the disobedient
My cry termed the voice of the dissident
My crusade described as the song of the frustrated
I will sing till 'my constituency' is emancipated
Was instructed this is my tradition
To bundle a child in prime to the house of a man
Certified and justified by unholy religious affiliations
Supported by parents handicapped by an uncouth association
Seen the product of this cultural hegemony
Baby-making factories they became as a gift of patrimony
Left as old women to suffer the deluge of traditional destitution
Littering the streets of our cities without any restitution
Observe how children coerced into marriage are deprived of their rights!
Their will and wishes denied by irrational traditional institutions
Conceding to this charade is the society in sight
The rape of the child's intellect, stripped of her impressionable cognition
A victim of several abuses, oral and written
Subjected to numerous acts of brutality, severally beaten!
Raped twice, a victim of public shame and disgrace
Disowned by my parents, expelled by my race
But my head, bloody but unbowed,
My heart shaken, but impervious
My hope tried and tossed but I'm resilient
My will remains strong and undaunted
This clay shall be educated and informed
Join the profession of the compassionate tending the sick
Appear in white in the discharge of her duties
Reach out to the deprived, despised and rejected
Then let him come that is human and has the heart of flesh
Who sees the child as a gift of God and her rights sacrosanct
My heart pants and my hands wait for such a creature
To plan a home and children prepared for a blissful future
-Oluseyi Ogunbanwo
#PoetryChapBook
