We, the prayers sent to God.
Our pain wraps around us
Like snakes for rings,
Like scorpions for lockets,
Till we can’t feel anything anymore.
We bring out our anger in roadblocks and chants and flags during the day.
Your world stops and we frustrate you.
But you think thriving is about bullets and men who shoot them
So you bring out your axe and cut down our trees till our snakes have nowhere near to hide.
We go further away and we wait till they grow.
We teach our snakes violence
So they can grow into hydras,
Never dying till you are killed,
Exhumed and scattered in the depths of hell.
Then we’ll never see you again.
We are prayers.
The kind for vengeance and abolition.
The kind that vampires and witches are made of.
Witches, the ones in camps.
The kind that little boy fishermen are made of.
So that when it’s between life and death of another,
We always choose death for them
And their remains are taken
By gods to create gold for us.
We are prayers,
Loud on the streets of cities.
The gods who birthed us cry and fast.
They fast so we grow!
They fast so we thrive!
They fast so we become!
They kill for us to push their souls to hell,
And remind God when we get to heaven,
That they wait for their true judgment.
Till then, we’ll burn tires in your streets.
We’ll wave bloodied flags.
We’ll chant our lives out.
We’ll carry our dead from your streets.
We’ll march and release every abominable horror into your souls.
Ernestina Edem Azah
Ernestina Edem Azah is a public health nurse in her mid-twenties. She lives in Debiso a town in the Western North region of Ghana.
Photo by Hello I’m Nik on Unsplash