Welcome

Touch.

Touch your shoulders.

Feel the weight we bear together,

Each abasa, a testament to resilience.

Sisters, we hold each other up,

Shoulders squared against the storm.

Touch your hair,

Your crown, your halo.

Every strand a story,

Twisting, coiling, dancing

The roots of which run deep into a lineage of queens, who a long time ago built economies out of the pockets of their cornrows

Majestic, fierce, unbowed.

Touch your stretch marks,

The waves of the sea imprinted on your skin.

A recoiling delicacy

Like traces in the Sahara’s sands,

Each mark a journey through time,

The very testament that your body just like your soul broke free from the captivity of a small vessel

You see the bumps and lumps of the earth, hills and mountains and valleys that is how your body is

Well rounded with the right proportions and patterns

The fabric of the earth and all it asks for is touch

Touch your scars,

The quiet tattoos of survival.

The evidence of your defiance,

The symbol of the courage you are,

Reborn, renewed, relentless.

Touch your sisters,

Feel the connection,

The Bluetooth of beating hearts

Our discerning hearts that automatically remember that, hey

I know this beat, you beat just like me

Awww

In essence, we need need a touch of each other

A touch of love to awaken the light we are in this tunnel called life

Yes sister we are woven together by the threads of our shared existence

And with your touch you save my life

Winniefred F. Gbemuotor

19th Jul 2024

africa, empowerment, people, women
Day Terror

I saw the wave coming but I forgot to fly

I’ll blame it on proximity

To moving shells of different colors

That distracted me from my hunger

I saw a wave coming and I forgot how to fly

It hit me like the patterns in a memory foam

A wet episode of the déjà vus that life promised

But for a moment I opened my eyes

It was so clear

In that moment

Winniefred F Gbemuotor

17th Jul 2024

fear
I learnt to give up at age 18

After 3 rounds of determination or so

“is it supposed to be this hard?”

“Yes, but you should be able to do it”

“Yes, keep pushing”

“Yes, if I were in your shoes I’d have done so much”

I never got a no

Or I must have forgotten it

I don’t recognize my shoes

Yet I wake up in them every morning

You seem to know more about my shoes than me

You wish you could make my shoes shinier

If only they were yours

Me too

I learnt to give up

In all my languages

I’m sure I gave up before 18

Or I must have forgotten again

I forget a lot,

I wish I didn’t

I forgot where I hid my house key one time

But I certainly remember

Giving up

Winniefred F Gbemuotor

17th Jul 2024
Danfo

I was born on a bus

I arrived with a fountain of living water

Which the bus took as first tax

I was welcomed with the wrapper of one woman

Cleaned with the saliva of another

As she welcomed me too close to her face

I came with cries from the heat in mother’s belly

To the rashes I was about to get

I came with tears

Which the bus took as second tax

I already had no privacy

My body squashed by neighboring banters,

Fights, sweat and armpits

I was a child of the bus,

My future in the windscreen,

My past trapped in broken side mirrors,

My God watching me in the rear view mirror,

My pockets empty, because

I am a child of the bus, so

I wouldn’t pay transport for the rest of my life

Winniefred F. Gbemuotor

17th Jul 2024

birth, life, people
Death or Life

What if death wanted to say good night too

What if he tried and failed every time

With the hopes that

One day his touch won’t turn her cold and blue

That she would wake up in the morn’ and smile

Have a good day and come back

Maybe say good night to him too

Maybe death just wanted to touch

And know that his touch didn’t give

Transitional goosebumps but left a smile

On her face for once

So that he would boast

But to who?

Or at least enjoy the thought that

She would not feel the cold of

His loving presence

Or decide to leave the earth at the sight of

His smiling face

Maybe that’s why he hid under her bed

In the crevices of the wall

At the corner of her room

And outside her window

To whisper his good night

And touch her again one last time

Winniefred F Gbemuotor

17th Jul 2024

death life people, love
Adulthood in the matrix

We have gotten to the stage

Where our age have made us masters of the

Stage of life, children with longer feet

With which we pedal

To reach pedestals

And ride over young pedestrians

Who are automatically unwise because they have

Not made our mistakes… yet

We chew on futures with our wisdom teeth

Because we are masters, savants,

Snipers of the spotlight.

And even when we can no more be fruitful

No one else can be in our limelight,

We worked too hard for it.

We build a defect, a society of hunchbacks

Who carry corpses on palanquins

And have turned offices into places of worship

Our ages are the combinations to a safe where cowardice strangles our conscience,

Recycles joy and dreams

And wins daily

Winniefred F Gbemuotor

17th Jul 2024
I hope you forgive me

Flowers that wither at my balcony,

Semblance of touch that awakens me,

from the farthest slumber.

So near, yet long gone

I was never meant to see you

Take that flight

That took the light from my eyes

Flowers that wither at my balcony

I hope you

Forgive me

Winniefred F. Gbemuotor

11th May 2024

Welcome

Touch.

Day Terror

I learnt to give up at age 18

Danfo

Death or Life

Adulthood in the matrix