I read the entire compendium of Shakespeare’s sonnets in junior high school, not having the slightest idea what he was talking about in most of them, but loving the sounds and the mathematical arrangements of the words. Love Is Not Love (sonnet cxvi) is still a favourite. At the peak of my identity crises when I started to terribly fear that I did not belong and perhaps never would, I discovered Emily Dickinson. And there she was, speaking to my spirit. In the same way that the Psalms did which was a powerful crutch for me as I was estranged from religion at the time.
I am an African female being who absorbs the pain of other African female beings - FGM, forced marriages, miscarriages, sexual assaults, depression, domestic violence; who writes about pain she did not experience because others, like her, have; and writes about it. I just want to say: “I see you”, “I feel you”, and most importantly, “someone cares”.
