I will live in the sun

Who will the Boko Haram babies grow up to be?
What careers will they dream of ?
Who will they fall in love with?

Will they trail the dark behind them,
A cloak, to hide them when the world remembers where they came from?

Or will they keep the dark inside them,
A chasm, calling out to people who might love them
For company as they throw themselves down into it
To smash on the bottom
Every time they cannot sleep

I would pray for a barrier
Between them and their mothers
If I couldn't imagine a heart beat being all that kept even one of the Chibok girls
Even one of the other girls
Alive

A stubborn life

I would pray for a barrier between them and their fathers
If I didn't know that some one
Would always find their fathers in them

So I will pray for an earthquake
rumbling powerful,
Shaking the Boko Haram babies to remind them that
Each year they grow
They can say more loudly

"I am made of fire
The sun is my father
I have 276 and 241 and 263 mothers

I knew terror before I was born
I have tamed it in me

My nightmares weave spiderwebs
Stronger than states

My pain burns in my chest
Earthworms of fire that have learned to tunnel in me
I have never tried to escape them

When I set them free in the world
They will build us new cities
Of fire and sun

Founded on pain and nightmares
So we no longer run from them

We sleep with them as our pillows
So we can dream beyond them

I am made of fire
I know how to survive burning
I know that beyond fear there is pain
But beyond pain there is sun

I will live in the sun. "