What Does Freedom Taste Like

Content Warning: Mentions of abduction, murder, rape.

I don’t know what freedom tastes like.

And If I do, it’s not as pleasing as my Mama’s

pot of Gbegiri soup, waiting to be devoured with Amala.

I remember Papa once said being free is to walk 

on the street without wearing fear like hat;

to speak without being worn a nose mask of silence;

to go out with surety of returning to your loved ones' embrace.

Perhaps, Papa lived in another world;

Because I still don’t know what freedom tastes like.

I sought to ask Mama if she knows its taste, 

but her reply was clogged by the noise from our neighbor’s house:

Her son was nabbed for driving with tinted hair.

This doesn’t taste like the freedom papa told me.

Every free thing pushes you into a dungeon of forgetfulness.

I’m afraid to upload my “about me” on the bird app,

For fear of being the next victim of murder, rape, & ritual.

Every morning, I munch the Lord’s Prayer like chewing sticks;

That I don’t wake up with a calabash of concoction on my head.

I don’t know what freedom tastes like—

Perhaps, it died with Papa.