Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad

This is what Nigeria has become. The reality of this place we call home is a theatre of madness drafted by a horror writer. It makes no sense, births unnecessary fears and creates memories that forever haunt those who decide to engage. When you read the news with headlines that read like obituaries, you can't help but wonder if it was tears or laughter you should give. ‘200 female orphans married off and given grants’ How do you even react to this? What language can carry this grief? What emotion can truly express this conundrum? How did we get to a point where this is even possible? Where the leaders' solution to bloodshed is underage marriage and silence. We are ruled by humans who would burn the world to save themselves, leaders who find answers from the pits of hell and parade evil with the audacity of demons. I fear that even when you think you have seen the worst, they reach even deeper than hell, far below even where the devil himself can reach and find something worse. The pain runs even deeper when you realize there is nowhere to turn. Protest? We have done this and more. Elect new leadership? We remember where that led us? Foreign aid? No other person should care more about a country than the leaders of the country. Pray? No one prays harder than us. No one spends their time on their knees, heads bowed and eyes full of blood and tears more than the Nigerian people. There is pain where love should be,hatred sewn to the seams of this desolate city I stare at my feet, and watch blood run through milk and honey the one mother left for us.She would weep when she sees this but i think her tears would be too little to wash the chaos, the swarm of mice and the bloody snakes that won't stop eating the commoners' bread. In this labyrinth of abandoned fortune,my brothers run barefoot on blood soaked paths chasing invisible dreams like butterflies with broken wings.These men, once proud hunters, hunted for hope in the concrete jungle. Their feet is now worn and their mind weary and i pretend i don't see them,under the shroud of a crescent moon their souls wrapped in red baskets/calabash in exchange for crumbs Our father rests his head on his rotund belly,poison has seeped into his bones now his limbs like old trees are too heavy to lift, to mend, to fight the creeping rot. He sings at dawn, the warriors’ cry,he beats his chest and pounds the drum as he recounts his youth when he defended mother at war but when the sun calls,he cowers as a wounded lion his bravery shattered like leaves in a storm. Our uncles back is bent, he wanders with a mouth full of wine,spewing tales of when this city fed him in silver plates.Our aunties hold their waist and whisper prayers to the wind their voice is now broken,from years of screaming over the thirsty blade that knocked on the doors of their sons My sisters have buried their virtues in ancestral savannahs,they have painted their skin with lustrous kohl,and now strut the dusty streets in the garment of mother’s foe at noon, they work their spine in exchange for their dreams,at night, they gather their glittered pain,and join the aunties to mourn in vain We were told of fields of gold, Of skies that sang with freedom, Mother had prepared this feast In moulded clay covered in delicate pinks and fire glazed tourmaline. Now these fields are a graveyard of broken promises, All caught in the web of decay, hope is turned into dust, resilience into rust. The land we loved is now a stranger it's heartbeat is a language we no longer remember.

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