New Casualties Poem by Olufunke Ayeni

This poem is inspired by J.P Clark's poem
THE CASUALTIES.Though we do not speak
of the same casualties.

The casualties are not the many headless
bodies at Nyanya
They are well out of it
Though going to your grave in bits and
pieces is a casualty on its own
The casualties are not the kidnapped
chibok girls
They are a part of it
Waking up to 'inhuman faces', possible
murder and/or vitiation is not just a
casualties

It is a calamity

The casualties are not the hapless Jos
students who lost their heads in a battle
they weren't involved in
They were mere signalling smoke used to
warn of the casualties ahead
The casualties are the shocked mothers,
wives, daughters of the gentlemen whose
last view in life was their country loosing a
match
They are the grieving leftover family
recognizing their deads through body parts
They are the many schoolgirls in chibok's
surrounding villages that would never set
their feet in school again
They are the sleepless mothers who lack
even the comfort of their children's graves
They are the many A-list students who've
abandoned thier quest for education, they
prefer to return home in one piece
The casualties are above all us.
the ones whose fingers remain crossed, for
we know not the next target
the ones praying that our next church
service, school lecture, supermarket visit
wouldn't be our last.
The casualties are us, the remainders.