Had I known that his tongue was intoxicating,
I wouldn’t have smiled when he defined love,
Saying, “Love could be defined as a tide of affection,
Or a germinated feeling.”
If I had ever known he would forgot his definition
And leave me here in a pool of tears,
That the pen he gave me would be useless,
And I would have to exchange my dignity with it!
Had I ever known he would forget his promises,
That our story would be likened to that of a snail,
The story of snail and its shell.
If I had to ever know he would leave me behind the pot,
That the story he was talking about was that of a dead snail,
Never the living one!
Had I ever know that the beauty I saw decades past,
Fighting would soon disappear, I would have caged it with the snails,
Because he’s more gentle than they are.
Had I known that this atmosphere of tranquility,
Would last only for a moment,
I would have named the days ahead “peace”
Had I known he would prefer a self contained apartment to me,
Had I know there would be a second I will not hear from him,
That, he would transfigure into dark sun
Like flame into the air,
He left me with a rosary
But the cross is now heavier than the beads!
He left with a tree of cowpea, but the tree brings out no fruit!
His children now have swollen stomachs,
They are lean and fight against each other but cannot win!
They sing dirges and lullabies at christenings,
Because the newly born baby is their breakfast!
His children survive by their brutality and barbarity,
They live by the sword, but the sword is never wining,
they live by the litres of blood on their hands!
Dear Niger!
Let Elisha rise again,
So your decayed bone will have life too,
That we may sing again at our altar,
And offer sacrifices of our biometry,
So we can dance again,
To beats of the content of our character,
So we can smile again,
Because our skin and our eyeball are black,
So we can live to build a tower to fight our Babylon,
Dear Niger! Please come!
Wake up, you dead heritage!
Wake up our culture!
Your people are dying!