I am tired of seeing endangered women & hearing them cry

when they lament about running away from home│their petty businesses│their houses of worship│& the communities they grew up in│it stops feeling like insurgency│& starts feeling like propaganda

in that moment│it feels like living in a haunted house│a nightmare of undetachable things│blood-glass clocks│& Jesus crucified by Jews two thousand years ago

& it’s endangering to know that│the women whom we know are endangered were once safe│braiding inverted cornrows in open backyards│planning family dinners│& not imagining running away from home like everyone of us

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A history of metamorphosis IV

In her essay, Imrana Buba wrote: conflicts like Boko Haram happen every 100 years. It is how God tests the resilience of His servants. Just as we survived before, we will survive again.

She placed time versus endurance to mean grief.

I’ve not debated this before, like Marxists brag to the deaf about the abolition of class. First, the tongue is a half-dead prisoner. Then, the body is a pair of dusty eyes blinded by tears. The wind is a spy. Peace is a primitive regalia worn until 1804. Rags are trendy now, acutely bulleted, quadratically burned, isoscelessly blooded. I am more naked than covered.

In a grandmother’s box, in 1893, a granddaughter found her regalia—it was a misfit. She wasn’t gigantic. It was like teenagers losing double-hems for skirts no longer than knee-length in 1982. I feel all pained & bitter-memoried—a body crotchetting comfort with sorrow. I am more dead than alive.

The year is 2009. Stylists turn history into fabric. One recreates a two centuries old dress. Strangers tear it. They tear it beyond repair in 2014. Everything now is wounds & scars & dusty eyes blinded by tears. I am more forgotten than remembered.

So, I count one hundred years or something close to that & expect strangers to pieces that dress or strangle anyone in it—starting with a touch, or a grip, or sweeping like a broom of fire, until the ashes embrace the clouds, feel heavy, rain & drench us again.

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Abigail-Tydale Bassey is an Ibibio-Nigerian poet and essayist. Her second chapbook, Courageous, is a Pengician Poetry Chapbook Prize runner-up. She is a longlistee for the African Writers Awards in Poetry and has featured in seven anthologies, most recently The Journey of Life (Poets Choice, 2026). Abigail has poems published in The Muse Journal, Wildscape Literary Journal, The Ugly Review, Shadowplay, Triune, Writers Space Africa, Cultural Daily, and elsewhere. She enjoys playing tennis when she is not working or writing. Read her on X & IG: @abigailtydale.
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Picture Credits: Zaid Bilal