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They Keep Taking Everything

They Keep Taking Everything

We are always scared that we might turn up dead tomorrow, and when we don’t, another woman dies instead. We wake up to the weight of the news like it is our own story because it is, because we are her, and she too was like us before she was taken. She too lived in a space of unknown seconds to come, she too was like us when she read of women who were stabbed, raped and brutally murdered by lovers, strangers, service consultants, friends, colleagues and relatives. We cry.

But nowadays we turn numb while the news sit on our tongues like they belong there; we are starting to believe that they do, there are places that open up and swallow the news every week, every day, a place that spits out fury and grief. We sit with it; we die a little every time so that when our turn comes, we only have the pain of being brutally hacked. While similar stories drown in a noise of ego boiling from the mouths of men who sing “not me, not all men and men too” every second, while a woman dies at the turn of an hour.

These are not statistics

Men have taken

Men have taken

Men have taken

Men have Been taking!!

Now we sit and we wait

For the world to go poor of women

While men remain, among each other

Chanting ‘not all men’

Men too suffer

Men too

In a quagmire of their own selves

Remaining to an empty world

A future that will end when the last man has died

Alas we will return to a world of sane men

Of loving fathers who stay

Of responsible uncles who do not put six year old girls on their laps no end

Of fathers who don't sell of their teenage daughters to Grey headed neighbours for cows

To boys found digging in the pants of infants

We will begin again

Afresh

But then we will call the shots

Because men have failed at love

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Hazel Fasaha Tobo

Hazel Fasaha Tobo

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They Keep Taking Everything

They Keep Taking Everything

We are always scared that we might turn up dead tomorrow, and when we don’t, another woman dies instead. We wake up to the weight of the news like it is our own story because it is, because we are her, and she too was like us before she was taken. She too lived in a space of unknown seconds to come, she too was like us when she read of women who were stabbed, raped and brutally murdered by lovers, strangers, service consultants, friends, colleagues and relatives. We cry.

Loss

Loss

“It’s a lie; I know it’s a lie! He can’t die, he is too kind hearted to leave, too young to ascend to heaven, and he hasn’t even started pursuing his dreams. No! It’s a lie!” as I yell frantically to no one in particular.

Ultimate Storytelling Contest

Ultimate Storytelling Contest

The Ultimate Storytelling Contest is an open call for submissions, granting African Storytellers from across the continent to share their stories with not only the judges of the contest, but to integrate social media by posting a 3 minute video on their Facebook and Twitter timeliness with the hash tags, #UltimateStoryteller, #HSC and #HadithiyaAfrica.

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