Let’s Talk

Let’s talk about her:

The girl who lost her name

In-between the thighs of some boys who caged her,

The girl who can’t afford ‘always’ always because her purse is empty as night,

The girl who doesn’t know the name to

Give the child nobody wants,

The girl who only sees girls in her eyes.

 

Let’s talk about him:

The boy with no father who lost his name

In the line of understanding boyness,

The boy who only knows a kind of love,

The boy who refuses to say his pain

Because he is afraid of being shamed,

The boy who died on the journey of finding purpose.

 

Let’s talk about them:

The children who lost their playground

To bombs and shrapnel,

The children who lost their parents to

Unemployment and then learnt hunger,

The children thrown into the dark and touched in soft ways,

The children who just want to smile, play, and know childhood.

 

Let’s talk about power

The thing the draws a line in-between us,

The thing the eraces humanity and embraces inhumanity,

The thing that makes one god-enough

To forget purpose and service.

 

Let’s talk.

Let’s talk you, me, them, us.

Let’s talk. Let’s talk.

 

Chinua Ezenwa