PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
I opened my eyes to meet existence,
In the sphere called earth which rotates with persistence,
Therein was my continent Africa,
Bearing my home of birth Nigeria;
The past, when I was a little girl,
Growing with my older sister that loved the grill,
We feared our dad with every muscle we had,
Staying away from all things he called bad;
At oromerezimbu in rivers state,
I grew up in a wild community,
Obeying all my father’s laws in loyalty,
Staying to myself to avoid being a bait,
I crawled into every little dark corner I found,
Folding my hands like I was all chain-bound,
I stuffed sand into my hands and into my mouth,
Played with insects like we were boy scouts,
I was so feeble, weak and thin;
I remember spending a whole academic year like a ‘tin’,
A ‘tin’ is kept at one place and can’t move till it is pushed,
I was like that at an orthopedic hospital to which i was rushed,
I had an accident and broke one of my limbs for the second time,
My right leg,
I laid straight on the hospital bed,
Looked at my mum with her face red,
I was still trying to get her loud mime,
She was telling me that I’d be fine,
But I didn’t seem to understand that line;
That year past leaving that stressing memory behind,
Went to school after I had recovered,
But no one seemed to try to be kind,
I could still feel pain in my right leg like it was being fingered;
After one academic term when I thought it was all normal once again,
I felt a sharp pain around my abdomen one evening,
Mummy took me immediately to see the bald head doctor with pain,
Then I was feared that my nightmares were all back;
I was diagnosed with HIATAL HERNIA,
A disease I knew nothing about but fear,
Overheard my parents talking about money for surgery,
But one thing was so certain,
The surgery must be done quickly;
Stayed a week with my mum at the hospital,
Never did she stop praying and smiling like I was an altar,
She sang me to sleep anytime I complained of the pain,
And whenever she did I forgot all about her long crooked cane,
Then I woke up one morning by rowdy noises in the children’s ward,
A child had died that morning and it scared me so much,
Was more shaken with fear when two nurses came to my bed with a stretcher,
The surgery was to be done immediately,
Mum walked beside the stretcher on which I was carried till the theater doors closed with her outside,
Was still struggling and crying to see my mum when a cup-like sedater was placed on my nose;
Waking up I could see the ward fan dimly,
But felt stuffed like a yam barn,
The pain I felt was too much,
But I still endured till it was a faded touch,
Growing up with the belief that I was a sickler,
And for it was no healer,
I moved on.
Never bothered once to look up the meaning,
Then on my 13th birthday I had a strong feeling,
All three years in a boarding house I was known as a sickler because I told them so,
It made me more timid, shy, and weak and dumb;
I finally picked up my Oxford Learner’s Dictionary,
And I searched for its meaning in a hurry,
My genotype did not match with the result I got,
From then on, the shy and weak me began to rot,
I became confident and tried socializing,
It was like I had undergone recycling,
But this new me wanted more than I knew,
My final year in secondary school hit me like flu,
Forgot all I was taught by my parents,
Fun and style were my new residents;
I wanted to belong in whatever my peers did,
It felt good trying out a new deed,
And I grew worse every day,
Till I graduated with not much good to say;
Now a new stage of life opened for me,
I was going to college,
In college I would be so free,
For this I needed so much courage,
Got the best and longest advice,
Adults hung their words on me like lice,
I was 16 and still very young,
But my parents had on me their hopes hung;
Got admitted into UNN to study AGRIC ECONOMICS,
It was not going to be as easy as arithmetics,
For the first time I took a lot of responsibilities,
And I saw a wide range of possibilities,
It was a total new world,
Everyone had his/her own ship to board;
First day in college wasn’t easy as I thought,
It was like my head had been sold and bought,
No one showed interest that I was new,
It was like paddling a canoe without any clue,
But gradually I adjusted,
The taste of freedom was so heated,
It took no mercy on me,
Everything I wanted to see,
Every object I wanted to feel,
Every cover I wanted to peel,
Practically I could not help myself,
I could not stand at a spot like a shelf,
Tried to brace every new style,
My effervescence grew as long as Nile,
But freedom soon became normal,
More time was now spent on what was formal,
I was a lucky child,
My past although wasn’t so mild,
But it wasn’t that rough as well,
I was just surrounded by peer shell,
There were also financial crises,
Caused by instability in government power,
Our country should be corrupt free,
Every civil worker should have their faces full of glee,
But that’s not what’s happening,
Still in school yet I fear for graduation,
It wasn’t so tough at the beginning,
But am still belting up to avoid consolation;
Relationships are just what they are,
We don’t dream and take them far,
Our dreams are still what we imagine,
Just like life is like sand mixed with gin,
Even the weather dances with the Nigerian youthful life,
Vanity and corruption are now so rife;
Looking back at the last 9-10 years when I was still very little,
I’m no longer that mild and brittle,
With the changing and growing world,
I too had to change and grow broad,
I have at least four lectures every day,
I try hard to stay safe from stress and that sick bay,
When I was younger,
It was easy to obey my parents and satisfy their moral hunger,
But now as am adolescent,
That zeal is almost absent,
This strong will to make my own decisions never stops clouding my mind,
But with respect for my parents I can’t stop being kind;
And now I look to the future,
When a surgery can be held without rupture,
When I graduate from school,
I won’t be left lagging in a mull,
I won’t tie all my hopes to my B.Sc.,
I will obtain a good result in M.Sc.,
I won’t go scouting the states and cities in Nigeria for a job at once,
Might end up like grass-running buns;
I’ll keep writing poems as I do now,
Striving to be a great writer like Chinua Achebe,
And a beautiful prose writer like Chimamanda Adichie,
I’ll write poems that will be as strong as a bow,
Ready to shoot arrows of messages with inspirations into the hearts and minds of all those who will read or listen to them,
Poems that will inspire Nigerians to stand on their rights firm,
Poems that will make the old recall their past and the young aspire for a bright future,
And I’ll still be this cheerful, jovial girl or a lady at that time,
Always making a sentence a good rhyme,
And when I find someone who will love me,
Just the way my love for him will be,
Sharing his dreams and helping him fulfill them,
I’ll remain faithful as Barbie was to Ken;
And when we settle together and have children,
We’ll raise them in unity like a church guide her brethren,
Teaching them that the world is a rotating sphere that changes the life,
Those bad times might also become so rife,
And being good will not be easy as five,
Then if any of them loves writing the way I do,
I will let teach him or her to express him or herself with a pen and paper too,
I’ll help him or her feel this happiness I feel when I write mine,
This love for writing will go on in my family line,
So that if there will be a life after this,
I will never look down to earth, to Nigeria, to my lineage and hiss,
This high spirit will remain alive and everyone around me will feel this wherever I go;
And if my future be this so,
I’ll meet my grave with smiles of self-fulfillment,
That a once shy and timid little girl that always feared to reach out to the world,
Helped it become a better place with no replacement.
IHEDIOHA NICE
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