The day I got my first period,
Miss Nabirye was teaching us about the human uterus.
She spoke of it with such intensity,
I wondered if mine could feel Miss Nabirye’s energy.
She gave me a fresh new introduction,
A lesson in reproduction,
I stopped being afraid of ‘-cooties-‘
And learnt how I would make my future cuties.
The first blood was bitter-sweet.
It shone crimson red.
Like my inner beauty,
That they said would find me a good soulmate.
I stared at it for hours, processing.
Was I sick?
Or was I born with superpowers that were starting to manifest,
Was this my gift?
I would rather fly,
Or be able to create flowers anytime anyone needs them.
Not have my flower bleed every month.
I wondered how Mother Nature felt on the night she first bled.
It must have been glorious!
Seeds sprouting from her earthy flesh.
Fertility,
A price tag of her importance that was rendered priceless.
Her roots stretched to touch places she had never been.
It must have tickled.
Her leaves ;- green, surreal, touching the skyline without breaking a sweat.
Her air, fresh.
Molding life by the very breath she held.
No cramps, no mood swings, no pain.
She was so happy that she even made it rain.
The world was at her feet, so she fed it.
She gave the fish clean water,
Animals, food and drink,
Trees, rain and sunshine,
It was perfect!
Then,
Following a twist of fate,
Mother Nature met man.
Eyes blue like her oceans,
And skin brown like loam.
It was love at first sight.
Man made her a lifetime of promises.
Told her life would be better,
If only she could let him in.
He built her buildings tall and thick,
And other revolutionary things.
He built industries,
Cut down her trees to make some more room for him and his “-ideas-”
Built automobiles, took her oil,
Took over her nature and used love to blind her.
Against her will,
Man unzipped his trousers,
And plugged her up with his polythene paper,
Chocked her with the fumes of his success,
Carbon dioxide and methane,
He had no shame.
His eyes weren’t blue like her oceans anymore,
They were darkened like the earth she had become.
His fingers, caressing, reeked of betrayal and CFCs,
Drilling for oil,
Mining for wealth,
In! Out!
He was in and out and before she knew it,
he tore up her purity like it wasn’t hers, to begin with.
In the nick of time, she had in her womb
the fruit of an impure union.
Boiling in her were the repercussions of man’s actions
Her womb,
A pandora’s box of terrible decisions.
When the contractions began,
The pain wrung her like twisting a thick towel,
But all she could do was stand,
Breaking under the weight of her labour.
In her womb was the Man’s apocalypse,
Ripe and ready to be birthed.
All the while, she had been watching humans multiply,
Push little lookalikes out of themselves,
Raise them,
Give them names,
Teach them about her birds and bees,
Kiss them when they cry.
It broke her that the only tears they could see
were the ones that they shed now.
They would not see that in a few years,
Those tears will be shed by grown-ass men,
Seated in grown-ass offices,
Plagued by the consequences
of their parent’s myopia.
Do you not see that every rotation the Earth makes
are minutes passing by waiting for us
to start our own revolution?
And yet when our leaders hear this,
Their solution,
Fill their pockets as fast as they can,
So that they could probably afford Mars.
Halloween,
We choose the scariest costumes to belittle our fears.
Maybe this year I will dress like the earth in 50 years,
Maybe then I won’t be this scared.
The apocalypse looms over us,
Like a lion watching its prey,
Waiting.
Do we need to see bodies fall at our feet,
To finally feel the wrath of defeat?
Children, hungry bellies, because of all this heat.
Are we waiting for acid to rain on our skins?
Should birds start falling onto our heads?
For us to finally relate with the pains that
Mother Nature has had to go through?
Labouring to stay with us,
Yet suffering because of us.
Now is a little too late to be doing nothing!
Listen to her cries,
Her time to push is coming!
Her time is coming!