Vendors sell fruits and vegetables along a road in Gbarnga. Monrovia, Liberia. ©Anne Forster
A portrait of a woodabe woman. Niger. ©Mariam S. Abdullah
“Oh what a pretty girl! What a pretty dress. Oh you look just like a princess!”
I am a shell, pulled into ring-around-the-roses,
hurled into pinching hands during Red Rover.
I am away, running deep in the woods at home.
The woods are home. I sing sea shanties in nonsense words I make-made up.
I am away with my brother, running, running, running towards My Self.
Every step I take, I am closer to My Self.
I collect my being like cobwebs in the winds in the trees that you run in to because you just can’t see the wispy hard work mama spider spent all day making.
I am myself and she is gone.
Her sticky sweet gossamer threads tie me to the woods and her to me.
the light is green and the woods are dark and light.
Here is the silence of My Self and my soul and the world and, maybe God.
I lie in the green light darkness and the dirt holds me close. Here, there is no war, just me and no one to tell me to wash under my nails.
I could eat worms and no one could tell me otherwise. I will eat a worm. I can eat a worm. If fishes can eat worms, and I can eat fishes, then I have already eaten a worm.
A portrait of a woodabe woman. Niger. ©Mariam S. Abdullah
A portrait of a woodabe woman. Niger. ©Mariam S. Abdullah