Charlina Daitouah-Smith

I Emancipate

Hanging by my jagged will,
I got it
slam bang in my face.

Collecting the scanty vestiges
of my womanhood,
and the pieces of my dress,

I fled.

Forced submission
had made me a shell.
But it forced me to other things too.

Seeing those soulless eyes glaze over again,
recalling my pitiful moans that brought no mercy,
sheer terror pulsating through my veins,
darting frantically among our jaded offsprings,

I fled. Fast.

Not to nurse my wounds
in silent tears and cower in fear
as I was taught to do.

I fled.

To the police, to the law.
Our neighbors said, African women cover
their men, but I put my husband’s butt outside.
Well, I said, through swollen lips, “Been seeing that butt for years,
about time you did too”.

Dilemma

My man took up with a young thing,
iron tay-tay, Lorma butt,
waist like a snake with fire between her legs.
Me here with my sagging
behind, broken veined stomach,
slipper tay-tay, and drooping waist.
He soon started throwing the “D” word around.
After twenty years,
he had now started talking about incompatibility.
Then I knew the spoon had reached my mouth.
My girlfriend counseled,
“It will blow over soon, just a harmless affair”.
I don’t think so, my man don’t know who he is anymore.
You know the other night, he said,
“Even King David had a sixteen year old warming him on his death bed”.
So, in the dead of the night,
I sit by my side of our bed and think,
“kill one or both?”

In the Cause for Women Suffrage . . . the Struggle Continues

We fight for equality, but
the fight is no longer the same
as when we first began. Now,
we fight not only for the right
to work outside the home, to
vote and ascend to political
prominence. We fight not only
for the right to be heard, to be
treated as equals and not as
possessions. We fight not only
to give the girl child a life in this
man’s world. We fight not only

to abolish FGM, to penalize the
hellish crimes of rape and
floggings at the hands of our men.
NO! We also fight for the right
to change our sex and copulate
with each other. We fight for
the right to legally trade our bodies,
we vigorously champion the
cause of vain displays of flesh,

clothing vulgarity in vogue,
and claiming indecency a
right. We fight to legalize

murder and condemn terrorism,
in one breath. We fight to
topple God-ordained headship

and install a demonic Jezebelic
reign. We fight to wear the
pants and be the man.

We then spawn a strange breed, one
with a perverted identity, that thinks
it quite natural to spit in our bemused faces.

Liberian Mob Justice
You’ve seen those billboards all around town,
the ones that say report crimes
to the police, don’t take the law in your
own hands? You’ve seen those ones?
Well, they are not working.
The mob dispenses justice these days
like lightning. They’ve become
a regular fast-track court, no backlog of
cases.

You run somebody over? You had better run
fast. Those self-appointed sheriffs will burn
you and your vehicle straight to kingdom come.

Now, did you shoot somebody like that
police guy did? You are sorry? Well, too late.
They’ll cremate you, naija style.

The mob even has criminals running to the police.
You get caught pick pocketing, hightail it to
the nearest police depot,
else you be in a box with no space.
I heard plunderers of state coffers
might have a worse fate.

Then, we have these dirty fifty-year olds,
pushing their digits in the vaginas of lil’ two
and three year olds. Ha, the law’s strong
but the mobs don’t wait for that.

So, the big shots come on the air and say,
“Liberians, stop mob violence, we are a
civilized nation”. Outwardly, they are
properly incensed. Mob justice?
What is Liberia coming to?
But inside, they are gleeful. Rape my
three-year old? I would have fed his
depraved penis to the dogs! What the hell
was that S.O.B. thinking anyway?

Pregnant Male

I watched him
shuffle along the
dirt path, his
trailing cuffs gathering
dust, hoisting his
ample belly as he
ambled along, rolling
unevenly from side to side.

I observed him
struggle in full
gestation, his rotund
middle heaving with
his feeble exertions,
breathing heavily,
sweating buckets,
laboring under a
childless pregnancy.

Copyright © 2009 Charlina Daitouah Smith