In a sac, we thrive in the warmth and comfort of our mother’s womb.
Unaware of the intentions of this cruel world.
That first cry imprints us with the reality of polluted latitudes
The vexation of an unseen future with probable disappoints
Sired through a wave of dependence that precipitates causing that boomerang to hit you in the face.
That kind of reality that leaves you questioning the sanity of mankind
Undetected you grow, as your mind absorbs the doctrine of your environment
All those years are gone, not forgotten but never remembered
Soon enough your body begins to change,
Embracing the curves and contours turning your figure into the sculpture it sculpts.
Now you have reached womanhood, your womanity
Humoured by these exceptional modifications you immaculately embrace your shadow of progressive beauty.
A whole new lifestyle and different level of respect emerges
Accustomed to this changing world,
Globalization colonizes the minds of the masses
Embracing the cultures that come with it.
“My dress, my choice” lingers as you stare at yourself in the mirror
Clothed for comfort and confidence,
My visual satisfaction takes centre precedence before foreign eyes set my comfort ablaze.
The streets buzz in the livelihood of people on the go
Minding their own business as their productive minds cultivate crops of enrichment.
While those without a clue of aspirations or dreams linger as pests posing as intellectually challenged viruses.
Where their sectioned brain only allows space for stupidity,
A culture of miniature thoughts drowning below their thinking capacity.
What use is a mindset if not destructive in this overpopulated nation?
Air kisses sound off floating her way before the African heat bursts that bubble
The sneering grows with every step she takes ignoring the animalistic behaviours resembling those of a hyena gagging at the obsolete need of annoyance.
“Block it out” she whispers to herself
As if one kind of wild animal wasn’t enough…
Their road domesticated tongues go on to “cat call” as the Nairobians call it
Whatever satisfies their overheated brain cells of unfiltered, uncouth mannerisms?
Into a coccus, they ignite to concoct a lesson directed at fulfilling their desire to teach all women a lesson,
One that womanity will never forget.
Like a hive of angry bees, they buzz sounds of gender abasement as their vicious hands droopingly reach for the clothes that once maintained the dignity she once protected from the looming sneers.
Her clothes are ripped to shreds as her tears run a racecourse of insults and “matusi”
The crowd slogans “vua nguo” as it sweeps through the barbaric crowds of men
Her cries and pleading are loud enough to shake the tarmac as bystanders try to get a glimpse
But for these barbarians, every stitch and cotton through the thread is eliminated.
“uniache” she screams, a case were the Maslow hierarchy of needs dubs an epic ‘F’
There she stands, naked, kicked, beaten, spat on, molested, and too confused to know what exactly her tears signify.
Tears of humiliation, shame, or the brutal assassination of the self-confidence she wore over her head.
Is that all they wanted?
“Fujo” with no direction!
“Ugomvi” with no substance!
“Kumkomesha” with no essence!
No restitution avails for the womanhood she once gratified.
She turns with nowhere to go trying to hide her nakedness with her trembling bruised hands.
Her freedom of choice eliminated but left for the world to see.
Only her fellow woman walks towards her to cover her with a shawl as the crowd disperses.
So this is what the world has taught us.
“My dress, my choice” is my slogan
One of a civil society, one of a civil mind, one of a civil kind.
I as a woman have earned my right to aspire to do what I want to do
What I aspire to be.
If my society fails to recognize my groundbreaking ability to bare the next generation,
How then can my right of existence blossom in a thorn bush forcing my curves to get pricked and hidden?
Like a baby, we are born into a world unknown and as all we know is the love of our mothers.
If a man can’t respect a woman, then his very existence must have happened by an error of reproductivity
My pain is shared by those who have been victimized and abused for the sake of womanhood
My pain is shared by those who have suffered as a result of such circumstances.
My heart bleeds at these gender disparities that divide our X and Z chromosomes into a state of oblivion as oppression looms.
Now is my time to speak
Tomorrow will be my daughter’s time to act
As its yesterday that sets the premise of this ruthlessness and injustice.
But today I stand for my right
“My dress my choice”
That should remain my alma mater
If the ignomity of womanity mutating our stem cells fails to align
with the brinks of conformity.
Then how else can we provoke humanity?
01/20/2015