THINGS THAT WERE LOST IN OUR VAGINAS by Nyachiro Lydia Kasese, (Tanzania)

Last week I found my seven year old cousin in the nude,

legs wide open in a sitting position and hands prying into her vagina as if searching for something there.

I wanted to ask her mother if maybe her new boyfriend may have dropped a penny there,

may have, lost his keys in the crevices of her vaginal lips so much so that it gave her an itch she had to scratch, gave her an ache whose source she had to find.

I wanted to rush over and close her legs,

wanted to wrap them shut with the kangas my mother covered herself with as she explained how boys were haram.

But there were no words where they should have been.

I wanted to wrap my hands around her body and teach her how to pray to the gods,

but I feared my hands may feel like his on her skin,

I feared that my voice may break in the midst of salah

and she would smell his scent on my body and know that we shared the same demons,

that our scars made the same tracks only mine have been running for over ten years now,

and yet every night since I taught her how to hate the stench of submission,

we kneel with our heads bowed down and still say “inshallah”

DIALOGUE OVER THE TWILIGHT ZONE.(Ebony & Ivory) –  by Moses Muyanja Kyeyune (Uganda)

EBONY:                                  SING, sing Ivory, inspire my night in Music.

Throw your voice over this shining cordon,

Into the halo of your ever clambering moon.

Color this cloud floating silent in my musings.

IVORY:                                    MIDNIGHT Prowler, hunting solo, hunting forlorn,

Lift your eyes and look upon my shadow.

Don’t you see, I’ve been frozen in Luna’s bright awe?

My voice ebbs and wanes in the twilight zone.

Look, look how I glide over your cradle,

Hold your whisperings, hold do not intrude,

On a night like this, even a sigh would be crude,

Listen to the music in your heart’s own throttle.

EBONY:                                  BEAUTIFUL, how can I hold my breath for this interlude,

When it is your song that draws me to this wall?

Will you sing that I may hearken to your call;

And howl out to my brothers from far and wide?

For my eyes are aglow, your moon should never fall,

Here I am drawn to you from the wild,

Can you thwart nature’s instinct nature’s pride?

Thrive, thrive do not stifle the fire in your soul.

IVORY:                                   THE fire in my soul is to my body weld,

A spirit that burns free must itself immolate,

The embers of my freedom have scattered your way,

Have drawn you to me like a weapon I wield sildenafil 100mg.

EBONY:                                  WHO then, do you sing for desolate the night,

Perched upon the hands of time like an Angel?

Is there Nectar in the curled up flower, Say Nightingale,

Or do you eat the Rose-buds on your fancy flight?

IVORY:                                    I sing for the Rose the bees have made weary

Nightly, I gaze upon her and her beauty devour,

In the moon’s shadow she’s without tint or color,

A beauty that sleeps gives wholly and freely.

EBONY:                                  THEN let me drawn into your Orb journeying lonely,

Share with me your some, your heavenly delights,

Let me rest my eyes from this contrasting night

And sleep like the flowers dressed naked in Ebony.

IVORY:                                    SLEEP in Ebony, and tonight our dreams shall be shared,

Drift into my shadow like a lover where I hide,

And there, upon entering to my world do abide,

Then I shall sing for your musings and music shall bear.