NIGERIAN ABSENT FATHERS...

DIJA, my younger sister has always had issue with her tongue for a pretty long while or so I thought. Right from the point she started talking, she stared intently into Mama’s eyes and threw up a teethy smile screaming, “PAPA, PAPA”, even though Papa was nowhere around, Mama hated her from that moment on. She’ll only take her meals in the study room, a lonely place housing a lot of PAPA’s memories finding happiness in a name and personality that has been long forgotten. She turned 5 years when she finally realized that the strange man in every broken picture frame around the house never waved back and she felt disappointed, Somehow, she figured Mama had answers so she'll tug at her clothe from time to time saying, “Sun rise up above, sun set down below, everybody know but Papa no come house, where in go…Nobody know”. Mama’s smile is like a dying country, like a jellyfish that has forgotten its sting and each time dija asked about papa, Mama broke down like a coconut oozing out water through her shells, she hated Papa.

Once after school, I found dija reading my poetry book, she never understood English so well but I could see her secretly crying, she looked up at me and amidst tears said, “Why you talk bad things about Papa, In no true…Everybody avoiding Papa like Ebola, even Mama”, I tried to pull her close but she ran into her room and shut the door. You see, there was no word for “ABSENT FATHER” in our native language and my poems were full of it, every piece of it. To me, Papa and Love were like rain falling from the sky, paralleled to infinity.

The next day, she sounded different, happy and excited. I couldn’t really place why but I think it had something to do with Mama’s promise to take her to see Papa during summer. That night, I couldn’t sleep, I had nightmares, Papa hunted me all night with a rifle, I woke drenched in my tears, it remind me of a memory, a bloody memory. Summer came and Mama took her to Papas’, I feigned illness just so I wouldn’t follow. I don’t really know what her happened but when Dija got back from Papa’s cell, she was full of tears and she kept saying, “Why you no want me Papa, why…” At this point, I knew I had to tell her, I sat her down quietly and explained my whole poem to her, “I was 5 years old then, young, beautiful and just like you…Mama had a 9-5 job, Papa always came back late and drunk, the society had done him enough harm already…so much for the family I always wanted. One night, Mama worked late-night shift so she couldn't make home, I had no idea so I fell asleep in the parlor waiting for her, Papa came home drunk that night smelling like shit, checked in on Mama but found her absence, he staggered back to the parlor and stared at me with a look I knew too well, maybe...Just maybe if he didn't drink so much that night, his sight wouldn't have been so blurred, I mean...He was my father right. Papa slept with me that night and every other night Mama worked late night. 

Days became weeks, months and I was almost turning 7 years before Mama found out through my poems that Papa, the man she married was a…paedophile and I was pretty much walking dead. I know I'm supposed to be good with words but how do I tell a story of an absent father and a young mother without you...my daughter"


Model: @mylah-shyv