Ochanya:
I have held you like a conversation itching to toss off the roof of my lips,
I have thought about you deeply, a thought hindering me from laying the sheets of my mind coherently.
Ochanya, I would like to call you Psalm 151. Not because I want to flaunt your death again on appetites wet by captivating headlines on TV screens,
But,
I want everyone to understand that you are no joke, you are not unworthy to make their faces turn twice.
You are more than a memory inserted, you are a living memory.
I find no quell of sense to why you left this world early, I don’t want to hear anyone say it was your time because it wasn’t.

They:
Those men that caused you an unready departure, picked you like a theory about to be tested,
They forgot too soon. Did you have aspirations? They forgot your innocence and the young knock of childishness that came when you called them”uncle” or said “good morning”
I know you fought. You struggled like a battling rising wind whipping up, yet their enthusiasm didn’t get renewed
Ochanya your death says life refundable
You are no joke, you are not unworthy to make their faces turn twice

Rest in peace.

This piece is dedicated to Ochanya the 13-year-old girl raped to death a few months ago.

Mercy Edmund Harold is a writer and a poet, presently doing NYSC in Osun state. Mercy is a womanist indulging in everything that concerns the growth of women in Nigeria. She studied Mass Communication from NTA college, Jos.