A COMPLETE METAMORPHOSIS

Looking at the life of a cockroach, most people would say that it has a complete life. It starts off as an egg, then goes on to become a larvae, then a pupae and finally it becomes an adult cockroach. Just like the metamorphosis of the cockroach, we humans also have our own form of complete metamorphosis. We get born, go through the stages of infancy to adolescence, and pass through puberty till we finally enter the world of adult hood. However, there are some people who do not complete their metamorphosis or who complete theirs too early. We see people getting lost to sicknesses, committing suicides, having unfortunate accidents. There is this popular saying that “life is too short to waste away”. This is true when thinking about. As long as we are on this earth, we have to make use of whatever time we have left to achieve the most we can because we never know when our own metamorphosis would be complete.

Edeoghon Osarieme

 

THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT

Ever heard of the theory called the butterfly effect? Maybe you’ve heard of it but you don’t know what it is. The butterfly effect is a theory which says that the little things which happen in a person’s life affects the overall ‘big picture’ of that person’s life. This means that the little things that people do which may seem like they don’t matter somehow affect the totality of that person’s life. This phenomenon drives on the fact that no matter how small an issue is in a person’s life or how little an event is, it has an overall effect on that person. It is important for people to take note of whatever small changes that happens in their life and not just brush it aside because this theory says that whether we like it or not, such small events or happenings would affect our lives in the long run.

Notes to A Black Beautiful Girl

Hey beautiful, full of beauty and grace. You are a fighter and the woman who does not take shit from any man. You are a sassy women with the sharp tongues and hands firmly on your hips. You are the ride-or-die chick. Like your mother before you, you are that woman who ploughed and planted and gathered into barns and no man could head. We are the women who make a way out of no way.

You are a woman who is proud of who she is and what she stands for. You are a woman who should never seek definition from whom you are with. Never be defined by anyone. You should be one who can pick up the small pieces of her broken heart and carry on as if you were never hurt in the first place.

You are a woman of great strength who does not give into the circumstances of life. Your strength helps you go through life without problems. Your strength gives the ability to school, work take care of your family and so many things you want to do. Take pride in your strength, it would take you places. Do not be weak for anybody, you are strong enough to be what you want to be. You are a woman never to be played with. bought or sold.

Even with your strength, your Love is equal, patient and kind. You should always try to bring joy to others even when you can’t do it for yourself. Your mind is filled with the knowledge from old. You are strong as any prize fighter. You have the strength to beat the odds every day. Your wisdom surpasses a million books.

You are not just the woman in the other room. You are not built for the kitchen alone. You are a woman of great things. You are not born just for reproduction. But you are born for impact. Society may tell you that you are a woman and a woman’s place is in the kitchen, or you are born to give birth to more children, or you are born to take care of your husband and your children, they would tell you there is no place for you in the world. But all that is false, you are born for great exploits. You can be anything you want to be. You are not just someone’s wife, someone’s mother, or someone’s daughter. You are who you want to be. You are that great president, you are that great lawyer, and you are that great engineer. You are who you choose to be. You are not limited to the household. You are much more than that. You can be anyone you chose to be.

You are a beautiful girl with afro kinky hair, black sink and a beautiful body. Your skin is blessed by the melanin gods.  We’re all comprised of mahogany, ebony, caramel, chestnut, coffee and sienna. You can be as dark as the midnight sky or brown like honey, it does not really matter. Thick black hair, divine brown skin, big brown eyes, plum lips, thick hips, short legs and all that this is who you are. This is want makes you unique and beautiful.

You can be like, Elizabeth Coleman, known also as ‘Bessie’, the world’s first black female pilot. Or Maya Angelou who is a celebrated poet, author, activist and educator. Or Anna Tibaijuka who is the highest ranked African female in the United Nations. Or Madam C.J. Walker who was America’s first black self-made millionaire. Or Shirley Chisholm was the first black woman to be elected to Congress. Or Karen Bass is currently the U.S. Representative for California’s 33rd congressional district. Or Ellen Johnson Sirleaf who is the first black woman to win a presidential election in Africa. Or Condoleezza Rice who is the first black woman to hold the position of Secretary of State. Remember you can be any one you want to be.

Always Smile because you smile is brighter than a thousand suns you do not need to compete, you have already won your soul is pure, confidence, secure. You strong black Woman with your natural hair and smooth brown skin you are an Afrocentric sister that always win. Your beauty transcends past outward looks. You are black which means you represent depth, strength, elegance and nobleness. You are Black, indeed you are filled with your own light.

AKIN-ADETORO ADEDASOLA

The Past Remains the Past Always

I cannot afford to fail, it cannot happen again. The semester’s exam was near, it was just one week away and I always have this exam failure because of my past I had failed so many times but I was surprised that I was failing because in primary school I was one of the best down to junior secondary school.

Well, it all started in senior secondary school when I started going out with boys I would date, like 5 boys at a time (thinking I was a boss) not knowing what I was getting myself into. I would spend my night chatting with different boys at a time instead of reading. I also had the ones that I called money banks {maga}. It was not that my parents were poor but obviously they would not give me enough money to satisfy my need. So I did all these things and forgot the type of person I was supposed to be. I mean, the smart and intelligent part of me was being used only on the boys.

This made me so dumb and careless and that marked the beginning of the failing part of my life. My academics dropped woefully. This made me really scared because even when Igained admission into the university, I was not still doing well no matter how badly I wanted to do well. This happened for three good semesters and I already made up my mind that it cannot happen again because my past cannot define me.

I hold on to what awaits me. I hold on to my future which is already here, my past is my past and it remains my past.

-Daisi Flourish

Stood Up

The day was coming to a close it was getting darker and darker and I had not seen my boyfriend Johnson. I was at my close friend house faith, waiting for him. He texted me that he would come over to see me, I had not seen him for days and I already missed him so much despite how angry I was I still missed him badly and I really wanted to see him.

I was scared I would not see him because my dad already called that he was on his way to pick me. I thought my dad was going to send the driver so I would make an excuse that my friend, faith, wanted me to sleep over. But apparently it turned out that he was the one coming, so I planned to use the same excuse on him which I doubted and it turned out the way I thought so I went home angry at the fact that Johnson did not come to see me and he did not bother to text me and the fact my dad shouted on me because I told him I wanted to sleep over.

On our way home I did not say a word to him because I was very angry even when he wanted to stop for ice-cream and pizza I said no so we went home straight, on getting to the house I greeted my mum with a very low tone but she did not hear me so she thought I did not greet her she then asked me why I did not greet her and I answered rudely she got up with an angry face came to where I was and gave me a resounding slap that I would never forget for generations to come.

I went to my room crying that night not only because of the fact that I received a resounding slap from my mum but for the fact that my dad shouted on me that same night and Johnson did not come to see me and he did not text me either.

-Daisi Flourish

I’M WATCHING MY WEIGHT

Everyone in today’s society is on a diet. Everyone is trying to cut down even the non-clumsy ones want to cut down. Almost every woman is going the’ ketogenic’ way so they could burn down some calories and lose some weight which is quiet an interesting sight. Nowadays, many people have open gyms because most gyms are regularly flooded with women from all works of life who want to get the right body structure and maintain their figure eight bodies so  they could get that guy who would “put a ring on it”(wonders.com). From the look of things, most of us engage ourselves into certain things just because they are trending or because are friends are involved into it. The one million dollar question is, why all of this stress? Why kill yourself over “dust” as radical Christians would say.

Bloggers however seem to be the most beneficiaries of these slimming regimes. They have seized the opportunity and become automatic health consultants and nutritionists. Aunty Buki, my own neighbor woke up this morning and told me that she had become a food specialist. This is a woman who was into trading and I kept pondering on how she came about with the fatal exchange. While trying to process Aunty Buki’s breaking news, Mr. Femi walked into my office telling me about his wife’s new food menu and how she had decided to include every single member of the family into her “keto” diet. . ‘My wife has transformed the whole house into a ‘ketogenic factory’ Mr. Femi exclaimed in displeasure.

It is quite interesting that even secondary school folks have joined the league. It was reported that an SS3 student went to school without school provisions on the basis that she was watching her weight. (Give me a second please, is your weight a movie? Anyway happy watching.)

 The “ketogenic” women from my research are a group of women who have an objective of having an experience of the sweet sixteen’s life once again. In order to achieve this, they deprived themselves for starchy foods such as garri, cocoyam, yams, cassava, rice, spaghetti and many others yet they maintain their soups. According to my research, these women have got a substitute for all of these. Some of them use garden egg or cabbage to make their swallow. Some even go as far as living strictly on vegetables and water. Could this be a fast? Or a compulsory subject? (Jamb question).

For the lazy ones, slim tea is the way forward. They would prefer to have the world’s teas on their tables rather than go the “keto” way. As at last week, I heard that a 33-year old mother of 2 had passed away as a result of kidney failures caused by one of these teas. It is understandable that women want to look good but going to the extent of killing yourself is unimaginable.

Some women have actually used the “keto” platform to regain their healthy lives. Some of them who as a result of child birth had gained excess weight and ended up with clumsy looks have used the “keto” diet to actually watch their weight and flee from certain killer diseases such as obesity, diabetes, cancer and many others. Whatever the case, it is important that wisdom be applied to every single thing we do. Do not follow the crowd aimlessly but let wisdom direct and guide you.

-Lenga Daisy

Dad, Where Are You?

I have never known what it means to have a relationship with the male figure referred to as ‘father’. I have always know that a father was that man who came home every evening with so many gifts for me and mummy always said “Baby, Dad is here. Go on say hello”. To me, it was a complete drama because I didn’t know this man except for the fact that I was to call him “Father”.

I thought I was the only one in such a situation until I met Juliet. Juliet always told me how she loved her mother so much because “Dad doesn’t like us” she always said “ He doesn’t like staying with us at home.” I really didn’t care if Dad loved me or not because I hardly knew him. He was always away from home. Today I was told he was in Ghana, the next day France, the next week UK and the next month Spain. Who was he looking for in all those places? I really never bothered. By the way, my dad wasn’t the only one who didn’t stay at home. I had many in my shoes so I wasn’t bothered.

Many have shared the same experience. We have been brought up into families where Dad was almost never around. He was either at the office or on a trip in order words, he became a ghost daddy. The issue at hand looked so minimal but the absence of our fathers in our lives has kept a void in us. This is because we grow up being so addicted to mummy with little or no knowledge about the man who had been in charge of our bills from our genesis.

As time went by, I made a decision to get to know him. I wanted reasons for his absence. I wanted to know why he was never around and I came to realize that the problem had never been our fathers but us. Society has placed men in a very strategic position which has indirectly rendered them slaves in a modern world. According to society, for a man to be respected, he had to prove that with his possessions, the caliber of schools his children attended, his wife’s ‘packaging’ and so on (excluding the goal which is the character and personality of his children). No man unless he is a scammer would be able to meet up with these expenses if he seats in the comfort of his house. You always hear fathers say a little sleep a little slumber. A little folding of hands and poverty would come crawling like a thief. Does that mean you should die without getting to have a taste of your labour?

Society, please leave our fathers alone. Enough of your prangs on us. You (society) have rendered us fatherless even before the departure of our fathers. You have enrolled our mothers into the department of widowhood (while their husbands are still alive). You have deprived us from the joy of having a father because of your selfish opinions. For ages now, we have lived incomplete lives because of the absence of our fathers.

Testimonies from others are of the same nature. I am Mabel Okafor and my Dad is a Medical Doctor. From the moment I was a child, I already got used to the fact that I could only spend the day with my Dad on Sundays because it was either a patient had one thing or the other. I am Timothy Frederick and the only thing I know about my father is that I bear his surname, Frederick. He is a pilot and works abroad. We talk on Skype and he showers mum and I with money. Asides that I know nothing about him, not even his favorite football team. If the foundation be destroyed, what can the righteous do?

If our fathers do not build us from the foundation, we shall make drastic mistakes which could have been avoided. Ladies go into marriage without learning from the father’s the expectations of a man in marriage. Men also get into relationships without their fathers giving them lessons on how to treat a woman.

 Enough of all this drama, I am going out there to bring my dad home. I am tired of the possessions, the money, the cars, you name it. All I know is that, I am not leaving without my Dad.

-Lenga Daisy

Internal fortitude

Everybody has a secret probably because it’s embarrassing or it can affect them in some way. People have problems with respecting privacy. One of the worst feelings I know is being locked in a corner, being restricted from saying or doing something because someone has a wedge over your head. Made to do things you don’t want to do and feeling powerless doing them sometimes for fear of discrimination. Crying every day for something you can’t change, asking God ‘why me,’ trying to understand if the shame will ever end.

Looking back to secondary school Grade 8 to be exact I had a classmate who beds wet. Due to this fact was discriminated by not only the female population but also the male population. Avoiding anybody and everybody knowing she will be laughed at. Leaving the hall as early as 6 am to hide behind the chapel before students exit their halls by 7:30. Running back to the hall as soon as classes end therefore missing lunch, starving herself for two weeks. She would avoid every school activity to avert the attention. Calling her parents during the weekends to cry.

In two weeks everything changed, it was like she took a long break to accept the problem she couldn’t change and came back confident, prepared to defend herself when people tried to bring her down. She told herself she wouldn’t cry anymore and she became the happiest person I know today.

Discrimination is not a joke, treating someone different because of what they do or say or for even things they can’t change because you feel you have the power to do so. If only I could go back to do something to help her, but I felt incapable of helping anybody, I had my problems, and I didn’t know what to say or do I was only in Grade 8 what was I going to tell her. She seemed suicidal, always crying and avoiding people. She didn’t speak for two weeks because her emotions were all in her mouth.

But that’s the world we live in. Some people can’t change the way they talk because some were raised insensitive, but you can change the way they talk about it. Once you are strong, you won’t need anybody to strengthen you. A wise man once said, “Wear your flaws like an armor, and nobody will use it to hurt you.”

 

Nwonye Adanna Oluchi

TOO LATE

My tears roll down my cheeks and crystallize as diamonds around my neck; the banister I grip for support to break my fall turns to gold beneath my fingers; the ceaseless bank alert notifications entirely drown the sound of my cry from my phone

Of course, I think, I must be a happy woman.

My angels love him, the monster. They cling his feet as soon as he returns and I watch with growing dread as he throws one child after another up into the air, Laughing as he catches each one in a fierce embrace.

My heart weeps for them. Not because I think he’ll hurt them but because they think I’m the one to be afraid of. Every time I reprimand them for doing something wrong, they shrink away and go to their father. He walks up to me and whispers, “My darling,” Planting a quick kiss on my lips. I smile at him, so that the children could see, just like he had demanded.

My mother once told me love and money had nothing to do with each other. That was the last thing she said to me. I couldn’t believe that she, like his family members, though I was after his money. I was so hurt by her words that I cut all connections with her and told her she didn’t know what she was talking about. Only recently did I realize that she hadn’t been casting aspersions upon my morals, she had aimed them at him

Spending his money on me and buying me gifts didn’t mean he loved me. Unfortunately, I realized that too late, I’ve sealed my captivity with his kids now. Only because of them, so I remain. I would not have my children live without a father figure or even worse, be taken away from me, which is a possibility since he can afford better lawyers than I can.

 

All these years, I have borne his marks on my skin like a cheetah does his spots. I had wanted to leave him the first night he hit me, but I forgave him the next day when he brought home the car I mistook for remorse. I had believed that he had felt shame over what he did to me and was trying to make amends but in the years that followed, it became a cycle.

He would hit me and then buy me some expensive thing or the other to obtain my forgiveness. The gifts never swayed me. After I realized that they were not linked to any repentance on his part, they started to feel as burdensome as his abuse. In fact, it began to seem like one of the ways he abused me.

I got used to it but I still never doubted his love for me. I only saw it as one of his shortcomings until I’m sitting in the living room one morning. I have just had my bath and had no make-up on. I hear a knock on my door and look through the peep-hole to find Richard standing at the other side of the door.

In a fit of excitement, I open the door and squeal his name, smiling very widely. But he doesn’t smile back. He stares at me for a while and then trails his fingers lightly around the bruise that had formed on my cheek from the night before.

He pulls me into a deep, long hug and then pulls back and when he pulled back and looked at me, his eyes startle me. I can only vaguely recognize some of the emotions in them. I focus on the one that I, at the moment, realize I have never seen in my own husband’s eyes.

I didn’t know that he still thought of me. He had been my closest friend in University even before I met my husband. But by the time he had come around to confessing his feelings for me, I was already in a relationship with my husband. “It’s too late,” I told him sadly at that time. From then on our friendship had gotten strained. It wasn’t any of our faults. It was simply as a result of the awkwardness that was bound to ensue from rejecting one’s closest friend.

He wipes the single tear that has streamed down my face as I felt the gravity of how much I have missed him over the years, “For how much longer?” he croaks out, and I look down and step away from him, thinking of my children, “It’s too late.” I tell him now.

Adeleke Praise

THE CRISIS

I have a problem with you. I can’t pinpoint the cause, but I know I have a problem with you. I’m the sort of person who doesn’t voice out my opinions frequently. Most times, I keep things to myself, even the problems I have with you. You invade my personal space, coming close to me even when I try to pull back. I too have problems of my own I need to face and conquer. I can get clingy and too emotionally attached. I need to learn how to be on my own and accept myself for who I am, but I know I can’t do it on my own. I need the help of God. I need to discover myself, know what my values are and what I believe. I need to know what the essence of my life is and what I was brought to this earth to fulfill. I need to stop overthinking things and worrying about what other people might say about what I do. I need to be me. 

EDEOGHON OSARIEME

 

EDEOGHON OSARIEME