Night dance|Chinecherem Veronica Enuijoke

Along Jonathan Street,

when you say your name, 

the streets empty.

You are left with the prophet 

who shouts his prayers

like his God comes from 

a long line of impairments. 

He calls you a pariah,

You who god does not answer,

You, a body that tethers to unholiness. 

Again, you say your name

and your mother shushes you

because a thing faster than

its God identifies with ruin. 

But this does not stop you 

from steering left, you 

who a thousands things have gone wrong in,

you, who inherited the burden of your ancestors,

women from women from women

lost in the ugliness of a singular dance,

hair tangled into beaded joy 

lost in the ugliness of names

grieving and grieving and grieving

everything our bodies could not be.

Look how we wear this burden

as if we’ve known no laughter.

Hear how the night listens 

to us, people with feet 

that tangle with the soil.

See the waters,

stretching, swaying

with the passion of our bodies.

But we forget we are an andromeda—

no matter how much we burn,

the universe cannot deny us resurrection.

When God called upon light,

we sprung with a dance,

carried these stories 

stuck to our teeth,

our hips became lips 

chanting our origins.

Everyone hears us, tonight.

Tonight, there is no big man,

no big woman.

When God called upon light ,

we split from the dark,

all teeth and claws

and the sun chased after us,

bore this colour into our lands.

This colour unburdens our yoke

Tonight, we pour wine to ourselves.

This dance is a revolution.

We, rebels of the old songs.

And if we cannot dance in our homes,

we shall make for it a shrine

and if our shrines fall,

we shall dance on waters.

The water does not swallow its own.

Our waters cannot swallow its own.

Can’t you see how we are goddesses,

Made of beauty and laughter.

We bear no yoke, no more.