What really happens to dreams that never see the reality of living?

Do they sit and sag?
Do they bleed out all the blood dreamed to live?
Do they turn sour; ferment perhaps decadent
Do they blossom or wither into fragment of what they once were.
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I wrote a rhetorical short poem, a first 😊

    

– a descendant of her grandmother’s mother

Let me tell you about my ancestors

The mother of my mother’s mother

The one whose palm where permanently stained – stained with the black of charcoal

Some days life was blissful and good

Other days life was bad and worse

But my ancestors paved way for me, for my mother’s mother and for my mother

They stood behind me for wars I battled and looked upon me from the heavens

Some days my face knows tears, pain, anguish and joy

A kind of joy that comes with peace

I am loved by women who’s aura have magic and a faint smell of burning coal

I am loved by women who’s palm have burnt in fire

I hope there comes a day where a little girl will know me as the mother of her grandmother’s mother.

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Follow iyeres_montage on instagram for amazing street trek photography, nature photography and so many more amazing stuff.

This is for you, I’m not sure if you remember me saying I would write a poem for this image but oh well….

WHAT IS THIS, WHAT IS THAT? Addressing body shaming.

Why does the beauty standard focus more on the female gender?

What is body shaming? Body shaming is the activity by which a person’s physical structure is being judged by certain societal standards.

Let’s begin from there; Different regions have their perspective of beauty in Nigeria, beauty could mean having a fairer skin tone or a darker one, it could be in weight comparison, facial attributes and also in body appeals or height. So why the need for shaming? Body shaming and body doubt is something most people experience during the adolescent and teenage phases in life and those stages are fragile whereby that negativity could scar a person for life.

One major fact about body shaming is that people feel like they need to have an opinion on everything including a random fellow’s body. When I say ‘people’ as used above I mean the perpetrators of such acts.

It is a known fact in Nigeria that the so called elders like to poke nose, a person could be walking ten feet away from them and they would shout out  “aah ife u don com fat oo you jus de chop abi, dis one wey u de look like mama we don bon four pikin” like was that necessary?

Someone could be having body doubt and an oppressor is equally body shaming that person too! Do you know what that could lead to? It could lead to anorexia, bulimia, depression, self-starvation, and in fact can lead a person to committing suicide.

I personally believe no one should body shame another person not because a person could be going through body doubt hence making them vulnerable alone but because it’s actually no one’s business which is the honest truth. It is no one’s business if a person is tall, short, plus size, skinny, huge, petite, busty, flat chested, thick, lean, and muscular or a unicorn.

Negative body talk has to be stopped and people need to embrace themselves. This is a reminder to deist from being perpetrators of this act or people that encourage this act because even giving them an audience is you doing something bad.

Never listen when the work of art that is the glory of the lord that is your body is being criticised by people who make their bed not to talk of a human. Never cry or feel bad about the imperfections of our bodies, to never cower because we look a certain way because newsflash we are all unique like pearls.

What is the beauty standard in Nigeria? Honestly the phrase beauty standards itself is a sham , there’s no such thing as beauty standards , everyone is beautiful as they are irrespective of race, hair, weight, height, intelligence ,talents ,passion, kindness etc.

Questions

We dread the answers more than the question knowing it will confirm our thoughts

Knowing the truth will complicate everything

So I ask you again, do you want the answer, the truth that will ruin everything?

For all the stars in the galaxy

Bie venue chez moi tout le monde ( please if I’m wrong feel free to correct me😊)

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Life has a certain way of coming around, a certain way that leads each soul unto thy path. Life has been this cloudy , grey and obscure sky with so many uncertainties; it keeps reforming again and again.

For the longest of time, I’ve been feeling down the drain and unproductive and I must say that’s one shitty way to feel ; my writings have felt unworthy and empty, so have the contents have been creating, the worst part of all this is that I had felt so certain and confident about my growth and consistency this year….. honestly I’m not even blaming the pandemic for all this because I think I would have felt the same way if there wasn’t any pandemic at hand.

Right now I’m just trying to know what my blog would be about and what contents I would be creating, until then au revoir my shiny stars, hopefully your sparkle with radiate!

P.S – I’m currently learning French ( le français)

A new year’s truth

I cleaned up, threw out some things I wrote, cleared out my writings and filtered through the few I left. I haven’t written and I can’t give an excuse that life happened because the truth is that most of the time, no – ninety percent of the time, I’m doing nothing, just laying down doing absolutely nothing.
  
Although the plan I had for 2019 was to write topics I would later on write about but I guess that didn’t happen – You know how people look for their niche in life or what others would either call ‘ calling or kick ‘ I guess that’s what i was searching for last year. I mostly did things I liked at the moment but as a person I tend not to like things for to long so I twitched here and there ….. Up till now I’m not sure what I’m going to do, It feels like my mental strength just shut down and that’s making me  feel so dumb! 
  
  By the way, let me tell you about what went down since the first of January. I’m still mentally down, I’ve written some things but they seem so inadequate, my book on wattpad is now on hold, the poems I’ve written all seem lifeless and without Purpose and that’s making me feel fishy so..  Yeah that’s pretty much all that went down so far. I’m just going to pretend and act like its December and hopefully I get my act together by February.
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To those souls out there, who like me aren’t sure about life, those souls with so much uncertainties and blank pages staring back at them, hopefully life  reconnect with us, hopefully we fight this phase.

Menstruation and it’s shame

You know how they say a visitor should stay for about one or two hours then leave well if no one told you Menstruation comes and it doesn’t stay for a couple of hours no not even a few years it stays for a long time, say thirty to thirty five years yeah something like that.

There is so much shaming from peers and opposite gender which leads to menstruation stigma. Growing up and growing into the menstrual cycle being ashamed is something that played a major role, it’s something that was self taught without having anyone teaching it to you or clarifying it either, like how we Know what pain is without knowing what word to describe it.

The conception given to menstruation is a terrible one and it’s funny that no one imposed this on our gender, it’s something that our ancestors battled with and we are also going through the same thing, Why? Because of the notion that a woman’s body isn’t hers, because a woman’s body has to be a certain way, clean and tidy.

According to numerous polls 85% of women feel timid, feel the need to hide talking about menstruation both privately and in open discussions and that is bizarre. A lot of women make up excuses to avoid going to school, I remember when I was in secondary school we hid pads so well so we didn’t need to carry our bags or purses along to the toilet, we got tights that had pockets in them so we didn’t have to go through the whole bag ordeal, we resorted to using palatable names how I would say to Bola ‘ I’m dancing, I need new dancing shoe’s ‘ quite outrageous right? Or when someone needs ‘ dancing shoes ‘ you’d have to pass them Inside your sleeves, in between a book and under the table, stretching your hands with the pad in it seemed so wrong, why?

This notion of embarrassment keeps been reinforced and recycled by the society. Did you know period cramps can feel as bad as a heart attack? I still believe there’s no pain that can be measured or compared to period cramps. I remember one time when I was going through a terrible cramp episode, I was fed up and I asked my mom when the pain will end and I was enlightened that it will end in my fifties however I was thirteen, how do you think I felt? I had to cry myself to sleep thinking of all the years of period cramps to come. So many women bear this pain through classes and work, having to dress in more suitable clothes to prevent leakage!!!

And let’s not forget the ‘ please check ‘ there was a time I had to go for an impromptu tennis competition in junior school that I was in dread through out, I had to be doing the ‘ please check ‘ and one time again I sat beside a woman in a bus trip who had me doing the ‘ please check ‘ . Nonetheless, we tie our PE jackets around our waist and pop pain killers into our mouth every minute.

Shopping also poses as an issue, alot of women have resorted to buying pads online which will be delivered to their homes, I for one have needed to go to pharmacies far away from where I live and the Shop attendants had to be women because it felt less awkward.

The lifestyle and environment of menstruation has to be changed for both genders, we need to eradicate this stigma and create a community of awareness which will help in open conversation where women feel comfortable.

#WeAllBlead

#GenderTogether

#Societalnorms

#maryamsaidit

#embersofire

SHATTERED

If he had crushed me it would have been better rather he crushed me and broke my legs, I tried to stand but I did not have legs anymore, I wanted to gather hope in my palms but I did not have hands anymore, I wanted to lay down but I did not have a back anymore.

He crushed me without leaving sawdust behind, when I wanted to be something he brought out a flaw and failure.

I wanted to feel even if it was pain or emptiness but I did not have a heart anymore.

Abyss

I had a house that had me decaying

Anxiety my companion

A house I dreaded returning to

A house which I over stretched my outings

I hated school because I had demons there but it was a better prison than my home

I get suffocated, my hands holding desperately to my neck

I choke from the critics and judgement of my kin

Insomnia my right hand

I stare at the walls thinking of nothing, anything and everything

I can’t help it

Playing tug of war with the demons no one believe I have.

Ancestors of Angels

The angels my grandmother told me about did not have curled golden lurks, blue oceanic eyes, pale skin, thin lips and wings like the angels from my books

The angels my grandmother told me about had tangled black hair styled into corn rows adored with cowries and red beds, she had defined tribal marks symbolising ancestral heritage and culture

Iya Agba told me the angels she knew wore the finest aso-oke fabric that the angels had dark skin and they had no wings rather they had two feet jeweled with beds

But I find myself in a dilemma in which I stand between the anvil and the hammer  wondering if I would go with angels or ancestors

I promise when I  return from heaven I would have with me an ancestor and an angel.