If I Die Unsung…

I journey in solitude to places I dare not tell
I hear words I dare not speak.

I dance to songs I dare not sing
Lest I be castrated before my weaning.

I was born at the stretch of a home
where survival was everybody’s song
Strife was our wine and betrayals our oil

We had voices of our own
But we dared not speak
For fear that our own mothers call us bastards
And our fathers disown us just like their fathers did
For speaking out in the face of treachery

So like bats
We only make merry at night time
Hiding under the shadow of a traumatised moonlight

We sleep hanging upside down
One eye opened, watching with all vigilance
Should an attack be imminent?

In this solitude we seem to have found
And the conquests so brazenly fought
Yet I know we cannot come to it
The peace we so very much seek.

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(c) Olasunkanmi Sanusi