Hakeem Sotayo Aro | + Follow Poet |
Ballad | + Fav Poem | Comment | Email | Print |

Night, Twenty First December

The dry breeze moves gently
Infecting the Hamlet with its cool temper
Even the birds shake and generate calmly
A young lady sat at the front of a mansion
Her oily body shines with the aid of the moon. Anon
She look up to the sky and she remember
Her head comes down like a withered rose, sadly.
Her maids calls her in, she refuses she is forlorn.

I was fourteen when our neighbor came to take me
My parents, happy that their daughter goes to the city
Gave her presents. My parents hugged and gave me a pea
She hold my hand roughly as we walk along the street some people pity
Me. She left me with some men. We didn't eat till night only a nut
We were twenty. We were packed in a juggernaut
We slept in the container till morn. We had all cried like a dying kitty
My good neighbor is nowhere and they stood on us like Mcafee
Fifteen of us where above fifteen. Each of them was to be a harlot.

Two years for me to join them I spent as a house worker
With a man a wife and four kids. No I worked more than break pads
It was a house of six rooms of which I am the washer
I wash clothes from pants to suits to wears mostly laces and jacquards.
The box room was where I slept like a rodent
Though delicious I ate twice daily, the dogs six times with content
I never went to school; to the kids I was a rival and always a loser
After my second year I flee to the streets where I prayed to meet some lads
All alone I was lost not knowing were to go I slept under a bridge tent.

Then I turn to the markets to carry loads for lords
Before then I had been raped twice
The token I got I used to maintain despite all odds
By then I had known the city. Going to my parents was my one vice
They received me with high expectations
But they saw and got nothing. They asked me questions.
I promised not to tell the truth I told them good words
They wished to hear. To come back home three years after was very nice
I cried, I had to endure the shame, villagers taught I should be rich I got no 
ovations.

She now leaves in a villa 
As the governess. Her maids call her in once more
With their dry lips. With her face now unwithered
She rise up to retire at the door
She looks back at the sky and her smiles awaken.
Twenty first December she was taken
Twenty first December the day she was raped at the street corner
Twenty first December today. Her name? Bimpe Oladapo
Twenty first December the day she will die. That day is waiting.

Copyright © Hakeem Sotayo Aro | Year Posted 2006

Please Login to post a comment