"The awakening" by Opaniyan Damilola Emmanuela

She walked out of the cubicle

with trepidation in her heart

She was going to do it

She had heard so much about it

But she never thought she would experience it

Like a dream, a nightmare, an eerie delusion

It really was happening

She stepped into yet a smaller cubicle

She stood on trembling feet

She really was going to do it

She put down her burden

But it stayed with her

The other one

The one she couldn’t let go

She shed the weight she was beset with

In her birthday suit she was

She cringed, flinched, and recoiled

But couldn’t leave

She had to do it;

She closed her mind and her feelings

Resolved not to dissolve

Picked up the bar and the loofa

Speedily, with shaky hands, and did it

Her momentum rapidly increased

She sped up, sped up and sped up

All at once, it was over!

She was free

She picked up her towel

Wrapped it around her body

Picked up her bucket, sponge and soap

And walked out of the bathroom

She had overcome

She had won the battle;

Her first bath in the hostel’s bathroom

Opaniyan Damilola Emmanuela is a 400-level of the Department of Communication and Language Arts, Faculty of Arts, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Oyo State.