Young African Poet: What Guilt Did To Me By Micheal Imossan, Nigerian.

That you had thrown yourself away just so you could be light

enough to carry me through the years;

When I was 7 years old, my mum bought me a collection of classic poems that featured Shakespeare’s alongside his books, Ola Rotimi’s “The Gods Are Not To Blame” and a CD that had a performance of Shakespeare’s plays.

imagine this as Micheal’s copy of Ola Rotimi’s “The Gods Are Not To Blame”.

I would watch these videos keenly, intrigued by the language even though I barely understood it, not knowing that at age 13, in my SSS1, I’d be introduced to Shakespeare’s works and by this, my writing journey would begin.

What guilt did to me
 
Maybe I wanted to belong to someone, a man
So I parked my bags and left. I was nine, his car waiting
 
by the side of Christmas. Your face, a stick wrapped
in sulphur, waiting to spark. 
The sky, a parade of fireworks. 
 
The promise of a bicycle blooming inside me. 
You did not move, you stood still like something nailed
 
to the ground, your eyes following me on to the door of his 
black Benz.  Through the harmattan stained glass, I watched 
 
you become a silhouette, the road lengthening you
into a memory, into an ellipsis. This is how innocence can be
 
guilty; your voice, a sad song through the telephone
and my lips pressed against silence as you kept repeating 
 
my name, Michael, Michael. I did not know that a mother’s pain
is to watch her child grow through the silence of a telephone call.
 
That you had thrown yourself away just so you could be light 
enough to carry me through the years; my four-year-old self
 
strapped to your back. That opening and closing the night for 
strangers was how you fed me into bloom. Isn’t this why my mouth
 
is full of forgive me? Why, after I knew what I knew, I knelt inside
 
my shame and muttered forgive me. I swear at age 13, after my
 
stepmother had starved me for three days, I wanted to come back

but I did not know how, I did not know you were waiting for me 
 
to return home— arms flung open like a wind-beaten door.

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Hannah Omokafe Dennis

Hannah Omokafe Dennis Is A 24-year-old Journalist, Voice-Over artist and UNFPA Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health Rights Advocate Living In Nigeria. She Currently Serves As A Community Manager In Konya Shamsrumi AndHas Some Of Her Written Works Published On Writer's Space Africa and audio stories on Genti media. She Enjoys Using Words And Her Voice To Tell Stories. She Tweets @Omokafe_forite.

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