Photo credit: Sven Brandsma. Source: Unsplash.

We wanted to fill up our shoes

Those ones our mothers bought

To win the battle with our growth

And the jackets too

We waited for the day when their sleeves

Stopped going past our wrist to our fingers

So, we measured our shoulders against each other

We wore our mothers lipstick

And pretended that the house keys

Were the keys to our cars

This was how we forgot to live

Belonging to tomorrow

Wanting so much to fill out our bodies

That we forgot to savour our smallness

We didn’t see how it shielded us

Everyday we died to become

Sold our years for worry

Now that we are, we do not want to be

And whenever we find our face

On the faces of children

We do not know how to tell them

Slow down, today is enough

 

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ogbonna Ogochukwu is an aspiring Nigerian writer. She is a graduate of Parasitology and Entomology from Nnamdi Azikiwe University. She lives in Lagos with her parents and two siblings.