THE CAGED MIND

From afar I gazed with my inner most heart 
At the beauty queen
    Of the lost kingdom of pride.
                                                  There she stood with her serpentine heart,
  Like a squirrel, caught in a trap,
  She hoisted in the middle of her doomed heart 
Speaking to regret.
        Like dust being blown 
By the breeze of the northern coast,
Her thoughts were shattered in her mind,        
                   For her tree of dignity has been cut down
  With that sharp axe of disgrace.  
To the impossible future of her 12:00 life, 
                 Her mind travelled.

Sailing backwards on the river of time, she snatched those
Days of greatness and opened smile.
Those days that are now buried in the middle of a dead mine
She saw those times of a strong and decorated calabash.
Those days her mom would speak
With shoulder’s double,
Those days she whined her waist with pride,
While the virgin beads move
 Towards the direction of her hips.
                    
Her dreams of a full keg of palm wine,
Fully arranged match box
And a blood stained white cloth has been smashed against 
              The rock of impossibilities.
Her precious gift has now become a tattered rift.
              Her tears cannot mend her tear.
Now her future she saw with fear.

                                              She looked at the sky and summoned her voice.
                        ‘Took me and used me as a serviette of enjoyment’
In anger,
She spoke in a roaring voice of horror.
And cursed him,
But the deed is done,
The seed is gone.
No curse can bring back that life you had.
Only if you could have waited for a while,
Only if your soul was not in that shameful race,
Only if your emotions were in a slower pace,
Then such horror wouldn’t have come to play.
Now what is carved in-between
Your laps is a broken pot.
On that day of joy,
No mortar will sound.
On that day of joy,
No pestle will pound,
Your pride is gone
Your shame is come.
What will you tell your parents at home?
What will you tell your neighbors and folks?
Tell me, when you enter that room of test,
What will you say to make him rest
When he finds out you are a broken pot,
When he knows he’s joined to a wingless bird.
Will he not go wild and entirely red?
 Think of all those pain,
Think of all the shame.
For you to be called a woman is false,
But a broken pot, that name is sure.

Mide Benedict