Christmas in Chibok [MUST READ] By Gbenga Adesina

In the privacy of my merry heart and the not so private laughter of my kin, I suddenly remembered the Chibok girls and their families and…and…colour just flew out of everything for me…for us…:
When I say jingle bell amidst the din of my pollen daughters beautiful as solace in mother’s arm
Chichi and Denike, 4 and 6, lithe as the intimation of joy, in their small red dresses, laughing like love, those Lupita eyes, braying around the house in kindred mischief, smiling and dancing their little...

dances, jumping and pulling at my shirt: “look at me look at me”. Their tongues rolling out joy in unformed word: daaaady!

When I say jingle bell, my mind will become one with punctured homes and vacant chairs in far Chibok where silence and absence sit in place of daughters that once sang. When I say jingle bell, my mind will become one with that woman of Ramah in Shiki, North of Chibok. Eyes kohled in loss no words could touch, tending her wounds, cradling her song in the open air. Her eyes auburn as want, tearing at a forgetful world lusting after its own need.

When I say jingle bell, I shall hear her sing and shall pause: Three words, three songs. One for 200 daughters and more laying still in mid morning light for the rescue yet to come.
Two and three for black doors that swallow songs world over. Her voice, her song lilting in the dark like a lone star calling forth forgotten daughters back to forgotten homes.