WHEN UNCLE KNEW I WAS NOT ALONE

Hi family! I hope everyone is doing great and we are all keeping safe. I am very pleased to share with you one of my recent poem on corporal punishment. This is a true life-story poem. Ending Corporal Punishment in Sierra Leone is a fight I must win with the help of the world and you that is reading this poem. Let the poem speak and my request will follow later on.

I never knew my passed mother was listening to my cries

Praying with me in the darkest night to be free

Though I heard her name whispering in the sky when I called

I never knew she travelled through hunger and pain with me

Until my body became a drum to be beaten

By uncle, neighbours and family members

With sticks, belts, slippers, canes, hands and feet

And my crying voice filled the sky with murmurations

It became a sad language that flew far away

To be interpreted only by ghosts

Or future-tellers associated with beautiful devils

Whose role is to free caged souls from evil spirits

I never knew mother was a living ghost

Until uncle took me to Freetown on a holiday

One morning he called my sister and grandmother

And revealed his dream from mother in Themne

‘E worrip memuna: orh bansr me mor neit eng pa ng sorilol

Org kong meh sepeth orh wan kong ang

Orh mem me mehreh-mehreh keh me tae gbog kor soh

Orh meh koh sorh, orh dae beng koh’

‘I dreamed of Memuna: she was angry as bush fire about Sorie Lol

She asked, why am I beating her child?

She warned me twice not to beat him again

If I do, she will come and take him away’

Before that I had called my mother’s name a hundred times in tears

Sitting somewhere lonely in my heart incanting like a sorcerer

Daily, my blood whispered pain over victory

Now, I am free from corporal punishment

If it were not for the help of a ghost

This poem would not have been told 

With or without a ghost parent

Children should not be drum kits

Not every ghost can read and understand sadness

Not every ghost can communicate to the living through dreams

If we want a prosperous and active future for all

We must protect and save every child