Monday 4 February 2013

WE ARE (For the Year 11 Girls at Haggeerston School)

This poem is generated from the words and feelings expressed by a group of girls who attended my workshop on 25th January.



Our mothers told us we were beautiful, smart,
brave, passionate; a gift to the world. We wore
her smiles bright. Chasing the dreams she had for
us on chariots of her pride. On the first day of school,
she kissed her words into our cheeks so we would
never forget. But the wind blew them away until we
found worth only in other’s opinions, in boy’s arms
In fabricated personalities, in dumbing down.
Another wind is blowing; a piece of paper
littered with words that will determine our

futures. We smell hints of our mother’s words
and piece together our stories like armour
for battle; discarding the insecurities the world
gave to us. We are not the sum of opinions.
We are beauty in shoulders people bow into,
offering sacrifices of tears as burdens float away.
We are hands that carry and care for a world that
cries for the tenderness of our perfect imperfections.
We are brains manufacturing talent, tomorrow’s leaders.
Wombs unashamed of failings that help us conceive our

true selves. We are bees stinging laughter into bitter
Situations. Forts of secrets that seam your
worlds together. We are anger that sparks
revolutions out of stagnation. Truth that
requires no explanation. We are perfect
futures in construction, slaying negativity in a once
forgotten chariot. We are our mother’s daughters
slowly becoming Women our daughters will be proud
of. We are girls on the brink of womanhood
claiming our rights to succeed.


©ToluAgbelusi 2013




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