Ofem Ubi’s Photography Meets Poetry #4

If we don’t applaud ourselves, who will?

Bare as I can be
In bare I am more of hate than love

I see me as miniature golf

The world screams unpleasant and depraving

Insecurity and I are best friends

And I receive lessons of pity

But then you are stranger

Foreigner of my countenance

And you are worth the pity

For you know my weakness not my strength

My rough surfaces see not where your foundation lays

And my nails don’t find solace hiding under your artificial

I wear my color as right

Does that make me outlaw?

It means I am confident

So next time you find me vulnerable

Wallowing in my self- laid corner of rejection

Remind me that there’s no shame in being me

Cure my vulnerability

Give me bravery pills

Remind me that my overlapped eyeballs

Stand naked from their sockets in unmasked beauty

My face is unprotected by the cuffs of brushes

My beauty is shield to my pores

My plain lips are hold to a thousand spoken words

I won’t skip meal sessions trying to look like a coke bottle

I’ll just be me and stay humble

I need not try looking thin and tall like Tony

Because there’s poetry in staying beautiful and healthy

Remind me, that though my hair is short

Not woven with Brazilian fabrics and bantu nuts

It echoes more strength than pain

Advice me…

That I need not search for spare self worth buying

Because I am the only bare woman in the room

Teach me to embrace me

Bare as I can be

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Muse –  Christiana Alawa

Iye is a lover of photography and she writes too.

Photographer – Otome Onoge