The art of kneeling
Photo: Samuel Martins
Once I believed in the innocence of kneeling.
As a child kneeling before my mother, eyes watery with pleas, my sins were extinguished.
But years have passed since then.
And everything I’ve seen seems to gently fade the truth off this thought.
Just show me one more reason to desert it, and I swear I’ll let it crash like pottery.
A week ago there was the third case of rape in the neighbourhood,
and the girls all carry something common in their dirge.
These men all knelt between their thighs.
These same knees my pastor said define a righteous man.
For years, each time my father thought my mother a punching bag,
he asked that she knelt down until what was left of his belt was the buckle.
I often thought of the scene after as the kind you will find after a suicide bomb,
little pieces of leather in disarray.
Yet they held hands. Prayed together on their knees the next Sunday.
About the author
Eliongema Udofia is a 17-year-old from Ika in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. He loves writing about the anomalies in his immediate environment. His works have been published on Brittle Paper and are forthcoming elsewhere. When he is not writing, he’s drawing and listening to music.
