The Man From My Vagina

Yisayoemeka,

I heard when you told that girl living in the next bungalow that you are not her equal.

She was trying to be defensive of her right by her own right but you shut her up when you again warned her that her right are limited by the virtue of her sex organ. 

I overlooked, I didn't call you. 

Yisayoemeka, you remembered the day you told me that a girl stood up to challenge you in class because you kept bullying her, still you said you put her in her place because common girl cannot override you.

I overlooked, I didn't call you.

When I told you to help your sister in the kitchen the other day, you flown it back at me. You told me bare, kitchen is not your place. You left me standing while I watched you go play your games. 

I overlooked, I didn't call you.

One day, during the Ekeirawo market day, I pleaded that you help me with some groceries, you asked when did that became your job as you do not know how to run the market.

I thought you must be right, so I decided to go by myself in my state of recuperating from my illnesses. Alas I slumped on my way out. 

I overlooked, I didn't call you.

Yisayoemeka, I remembered when I married your father, he was six years older than me.

He told me a way to his heart, love, and affection is in my submissiveness to him.

But I couldn't even agree less with him. He was right.

My place as a woman is in submission, to take everything good or bad thrown at me.

I dare not question if wouldn't want to lose my place. The right I have is the one given to me not the one I deserved.

I overlooked, I didn't call him.

Your father raped me but I was not supposed to call it rape since I was married and by the bond of marriage, he has authority over me and my body. I could only cry.

I overlooked, I didn't call him. 

The day he brought in another woman carrying his child, saying I couldn't fall pregnant again after two children, yourself and your sister, Pejuamakafatia. 

Culturally, my husband is liable to marry another woman. I dare not stand his way.

But it hurts me, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't blurt out my grief. He told me it is evil for a woman to hate another woman carrying a child for one's husband.

I overlooked, I didn't call him. 

I went into a fight against the other woman as she always stood in my way, I was told to bear all of it as the woman of the house.

My husband said I own his home even though he married more wives. He said I am the chief principal of other women, therefore I must act like one.

I obliged because he was right. For the first time, he had given me power. Power to gain access against other women ofcourse.

And as I continued in my chief principal duties, I kept pushing harder the more.

In the space of five years, I was already a chief principal wife to five other co wives of my husband.

It was hell but what could I had done?

I overlooked, I didn't call him.

When your father died mysteriously.

They held me responsible for his death.

No! I didn't kill him.

His wives conspired against me with an accusation that I poisoned him.

The family believed. His brothers and sisters made sure custom dealt with me traditionally.

I could not vindicate myself except to ask God to avenge for me. God never listen too. 

I overlooked, I didn't call them.

I walked out with bitterness as I joggled through life with you and your sister.

I could barely fend for myself and my children.

I was a crack in the wall willing to be stoned but my life is like a plague even stone are scared of.

I overlooked my pain, I didn't nurture it. 

Yisayoemeka, the day you were mobbed for stealing, my heart stops!

I remembered asking you why, you told me it is a mans' means to survive.

I was helpless but so were you.

I overlooked, I didn't call you. 

When you brought in a girl for a night that fateful day, you told me to vacate the room for you to use. And I have to.

I said to myself you have sexual needs at 19, you were becoming a man afterall. 

Twenty minutes later, the cries of the girl woke me up from the slab I slept on in the corridor with your sister.

I met her bleeding while she was in so much fright and you couldn't seems to understand her situation because when you had forcefully penetrated into her despite her pleas that you hold on, you overpowered her consent saying she cannot make fool of you.

I washed her stains, told her she will be fine as I dismissed her. 

I overlooked, I didn't call you.

Barely one month to that incident, your sister was raped. You went in rage blaming her for her gentle nature.

You were mad, you want to go punch her rapist but she pleaded you not to, saying she wanted no trouble.

I have always taught your sister peace. She got bullied, molested and maltreated many times but she bears them all.

I always do tell her God avenges for the oppressed and she waited too long for this God avengeance to no avail.

I overlooked her struggles, I didn't call her. 

The day she committed a cold suicide, I watched her lifeless tender body with all the bruises she had made peace with written all over her.

As I laid her to rest with my bare hands, her graves wrecked of chaos yet her body laid peacefully...

My daughter seems peaceful but her soul is chaos. And the only way she could get rid herself of war inside her is to make peace with her body in exchange.

I overlooked, I couldn't mourn her loss. 

Yisayoemeka, you left me to survive on your own terms, you left me for the hustle. 

The day you returned home with a porsche car, I couldn't recognized you.

You have grown up so well looking like your father. 

How did you made it, I asked. You replied it is the grace of God. And I smiled. Well, it seems God finally gave an answer to cries afterall, so I sang praises.

I asked what job you got, you said it's a work pay job but I knew your source of income was shaddy.

I overlooked, I didn't call you.

After you moved me to the city with your new wife who is nothing like the woman of my kind, but you couldn't stand her guts and I couldn't either. I was terrified by her minds, voices and stance, you were intimidated with all of her. 

I remembered the day you told her she cannot go to work because of me. That she should stay home to care for me, she told you and I bluntly that she goes to work so she could get paid by her own rights.

She said she would send in a nanny for me.

I hated her guts! But I couldn't stop loving her. 

The day you told her she must be compliant with every of your rules and dictates as her head, she looked you calmly and said no, my dear, I am the head of my own head. 

She reminded you, you are his equal and you don't get to dictate but dialogue with her for a concensus as patners. 

She was too much for you that her words haunted you for weeks.

I pitied your state because no female stand in your way like that ever. 

Not even me since you believed my gender were afterthoughts, hence inferior and it was a generational beliefs from your fore fathers who always dies mysterious death.

That was why your father died of his own prejudices, he died of his own coveteousness, he died of his own inner misogynism.

He died of his own toxic traditional male role he think God and his forefathers gave him, but then he died for all of them. 

I remembered that day you told that girl living in the bungalow you are not her equal.

You shut her up then but you couldn't shut your own later. 

The day you slapped your wife in her pregnancy, she arrested you with a physical abuse charge and bail.

You spent one week in that horrible police lock, I couldn't help you, I was only mad at your wife.

When you came out, she had put to bed and I watched you cried terribly for the first time as you carried your new adorable baby girl in your arms.

Yisayoemeka, for the first time, you dot on someone.

How much you love your daughter bemused me.

I have never seen you that caring, that nurturing, that loving and over protective like that before.

How you love your daughter so much I couldn't described.

Karma is like a pendulum swings, it goes and comes around. 

As your daughter grows, you told her how to be assertive and confident. 

You told her one evening that she is strong, beautiful and bold. You said she can be everything and anything good she ever can be without limits.

She blew you with a kiss while she sheepishly scurried off to invent a plane in the play house she often called “my laboratory”.

She was just five.

 Eventually, it  happened when you were arrested for duping.

You spent all your money to vindicate yourself but unclean money wouldn't cleanse you either.  You were found guilty and charged for rape, minor groping and molestation, duping and robbing.

You were sentenced to 10 years imprisonment with the help of your wife's influence to lessen your years.

Yisayoemeka, you wept tears on your way to the prison that day.

And you screamed “mama, please save me!” for the first time. 

Again, my heart stopped! I couldn't call you. 

Your daughter wept uncontrollably.

Your wife told you she would always come to

pay you visit oftentimes with your daughter. That was what kept you alive throughout your ten years in prison for your own deeds. 

Your wife divorced you but you were grateful to her for taking care of your daughter which she did well enough. She takes care of me too on your behalf.

On my sick bed, I told your daughter all of these and everything-everything.

Because for the first time in my life, I harkened onto the voice I have always overlooked. 

They were the voice of death beckoning to me.

I took all of my breathe telling my granddaughter how I failed you, how I failed your sister, how I failed myself. 

Because woe is to any woman who birth his own enemy then foster him on the rest of the world.

I took solace knowing my granddaughter is a revolution to the silence that destroyed the power I never knew existed. 

If I hadn't overlooked, I should have called you!

Your Mother,