Childhood Poem by Oluwaseyi Francis Adeosun

CHILDHOOD

Refer me to my mother,
And see in me the paternity of my father.
In the eyes of my brothers,
My sisters are conspicuous.
Festive period,
A harvest season.

Touch me and see the wrath of my father.
Beat me and go head-to-head with my mother.
Here come my brothers who wouldn’t look,
And see their blood threatened.
I enjoy the back up of my sisters,
With their blade-like mouth.

These back up though I enjoyed,
My mind always it comes,
That all these one day will be gone
When our different ways we go,
Memories only left behind
To be called upon

With high esteem I brag among my peers
Who want to see the ‘mecurinous’ eyes of my mother
Or hear the unwelcoming greeting of my father
“Kill him o” she will say to my sisters
And to my brothers “break his head o”
All to protect the child

Is this yellow or green? I wonder,
When unbelievably she “gave me my size”
Turned to him but “shut up” I got.
Go wash those plates, my sisters now say.
“Hey! Pick your cutlass, let’s go cut” brothers now say.
Then, I realized the insurance is gradually breaking away.

The childhood experience
Is never to be forgotten
Great though it was,
Its remembrance smiles it brings
“agba wa bura bi ewe o se o ri” **an elder was once a child or kid**
I love my childhood experience.