Born a Female
In an African Home
You work your spinal cord to its untimely death. May its gentle soul Rest In Peace.
You walk your feet till its ends fray. You serve everyone that has a stomach and a pair of legs that is forbidden from stepping into the kitchen because they’re what? Males.
Oh! You dare not complain — you’re not even allowed to. You bear the pains with a gentle strength for failure to keep to this law makes you the weakling of the pack.
Mom-in-chief tells tales of hard work and struggles of times past. Her badge of honor and insignia of strength. ‘Women are a strong breed!’ she’d always command. ‘They endure daily doses of pains in preparation for the grand-finale pain of childbirth.’ Her creed.
Well, call me lazy. I’d make it my crown — A lazy, rebellious female.
You run errands from the market to the kitchen to dining and to every place the food dwells. You serve because you were born to do so. God rest your poor soul. You are female in an African home. For no fault of yours, you were born without a dick.
You arise the earliest to fend for the empty bellies snoring nearby. You sleep last having faced the turbulent waves of the home-sea. You sleep last to awake first. Unfortunately, you’re a female.
Me: But this is madness and so unfair!SpiritFemale: Shhh my child, it is what it is. This path our ancestors walked, is a path you are destined to walk. It can’t be any different, my child.
Me: Would it ever be?
You serve everyone — including the one who returns by 11:00 pm. You place the meal before him and lift the plate when he is done. But he is not crippled, right?
And you dare not complain about being awoken from sleep. For some days, you would tarry till he returns, that you may have the honor of slaving away in your work clothes at your duty post. Oh! You dare not complain for you were born to honour him. Him being anyone with a dick between his legs.
In the near future, You will carry the baby in your stomach, And still carry the baby out of your stomach. You would keep to hospital appointments and PTA meetings because you’re the mom. You weather this storm all by yourself because you come from the lineage of the strong. But how about the dad? Last I checked, we were co-parents.
At the end of life, you would have achieved very little to please yourself. For all your days, you lived to serve everyone within the four walls of the home. You would be better off unborn than die unfulfilled with unexplored adventures and untapped potentials. What a sad way to live and a devastating way to die.
For this, I am tired, and tired, I’ll forever be.
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