Our Dilemma
You, our gods of immortals and living Of seas and lands Of all visible and not we beseech, hear our cry this day and come to our rescue.
Our sacred weapons of pleasure are being destroyed by the day rendered useless by our overseeing Lords and Ladies of ancestral descent.
They perform a barbaric operation on our 'flesh of honour' and call it 'Female Circumcision' in the white man's language.
They mutilate our pride and say it is 'tradition' "The initiation to womanhood."
They cut us!
Oh yes, they cut us with the blade.
In the gaze of our fellows, they cut us!
At times in the secrecy of our mother's haven.
They do not concede to the tools, nor words of the physician's for our safety.
To them it has been for ages and tradition dare not be defiled.
They just cut us.
Against our will as they are wont to, for we foresee the agony and anguish.
To these we try to parry but helpless we are.
Our eyes have cried, tears of unending pain and torment They have run dry of water.
Our hearts, laden with loathsomeness we fear may burst.
They cut us! with or without our consent.
Left to bleed by their ignorance sometimes fatal to our existence.
Other times, we become plagued with illness of strange names "Infection" the physician would call it.
Again, they say it delivers us from the hands of promiscuity as we ascend the ladder of womanhood.
Such blasphemy! We think.
As if we are not bound for the act of consummation in our 'married' days.
As we watch our counterparts this day-buried deep in this sin, Sisters whom we term fortunate, cut at childbirth fortunate to have escaped the pain we feel now, we can't but wonder… "Who is fooling who?"
You, our ancestral Lords and Ladies suffer us no more we beg.
What profit do you aspire when our lives are wont to expire in this course of tradition?
Oh! What a shame.
That you who drum to our ears to revere the dignity between our legs become the ones that destroy it.
* Poetry by Chinwe Azubuike | Nigeria. © Chinwe Azubuike
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