silence & consent. I broke, & the warehouse crawled into my skin —eerie & desolate. he held me, cupped-in-hands. I felt safe. his hands crossed my breast twice & I knew I was just soul & feminine. in this poem, I was barely eight. he said I was beautiful & ‘I love you’. & for the first time I didn’t know the face of my father. silence & consent? what does that mean? he touched me. bent me into a makeshift. scurried into me, solving the arithmetic of his own hand. he plugged in. I endured. I felt the heat & burn knowing the touch of the devil.[grief-stricken]. Stigma?. Is that what it’s called? his hands roadmapping a body nearly ample. he spread me like butter & I imaged as the ruin of crumbs. I reached for my voice & it emptied of sound. the country of my body, mowed to trampled grasses. I lost everything, knowing naivety. twelve years afterward, & the mirror in my bath is still blunt with truth: I’m a woman, lamb & lambskin of this animal kingdom. & under the shower, claws of waterdrops slither my skin —signature of memories living rent-free. I do not own me like the lord that undivined me. like the heft of guilt that scarred me. don’t know how best to say it that the woman betwixt my leg is dead of sovereignty. & the men in my life, just like my father, has mastered the art of unwomaning.
Chinemerem Prince Nwankwo, SWAN IV, is currently a final year student of the Department of History and International Studies, University of Uyo, Nigeria. He is the Poetry Editor, The Cloudscent Journal and an Assistant Poetry Editor, Arkore Arts. His poem “Portrait As An Anti-ballast” was recently acknowledged as an honorary mention for the Akachi Chukwuemeka Prize For Literature, 2024. He tweets @ CP Nwankwo.
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