Today’s featured Artist is my darling friend Dr Hannah Danieli Mungure.
Hannah Danieli Mungure is a medical doctor by profession, with a shared interest in literature and poetry. Her love for poetry stems from childhood, resulting in her winning national poetry competitions and also having a poem published in the UK Young Writers’ book in her teenage years. Over the years she had continued to write and often perform her pieces at local poetry events, weddings, etc. Her favourite poets include Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Harry Baker, to name a few.
As a woman of many hats, she also prides herself in her humanitarian and advocacy efforts being the founder and director of a Non-Profit Organization called Amani Trust that seeks to empower the underprivileged child.
Instagram: @hannahmungure
Facebook: Hannah Mungure
The Sea is Loud Tonight
The sea is loud tonight,
Swooshing its boisterous blue body onto mine.
I want it to stop. I want to get out of here. But I can’t.
The familiarity breeds contempt, sending a wave of bewilderment, rage and fear up my throat like some sort of reverse peristalsis.
My will is drowned in the power of the waves as they grasp my body, wash away my dignity and leave me still, in some sort of helpless paralysis.
If only I didn’t leave home last night, if only I could’veput up more of a fight
Then I wouldn’t be crying here, with a chest so tight;
If only I wore something other than that leatherskirt,
Maybe I wouldn’t be lying here, equivalent to dirt;
If only I didn’t walk with such confidence, a little more humility, and less femininity
Perhaps then I would still have my dignity.
The sea is loud tonight. But not as loud as the music you played to drown out the noise.
You love to play games, don’t you? You play the role of a friend so well
And this wasn’t your first time, I could tell.
The other girls and I – what do we have in common? Did you see them as objects too?
A body meant for nothing more than to satisfy you?
These raging waves don’t come close to how I feel about you.
Gosh. Now I’m an “angry black woman”.
No amount of shaking of my head can thrust out the sound of your voice
When you said you’d marry me if you had the choice.
A friendly joke at the time, right?
It’s funny how you made it sound like choices meant something to you
Like my consent was of value to you
Like I had human rights too.
The sea is loud tonight,
But not as loud as the horror story in my mind giving a full account of last night.
The sand is my stop button. I’mhacking at it helplessly hoping for a halt,
The sand is my anchor. I’m gripping it viciously but my heart’s sinking in tumult,
The sand is my pacifier. I’m pinned against it for some sort of comfort but all I feel is revolt.
If only I listened to my mother and didn’t have male friends
Then in this moment my future and past wouldn’t be trying to make amends;
If only I could forget the forcefulcoarseness of your hand
I wouldn’t be here, wishing this was quicksand;
If only you possessed a little more humanity,
Perhaps then… I would still have my virginity.
It’s funny how in the midst of it you said I was gorgeous
As though I was meant to take that as a compliment,
As though your opinion of my appearance was so significant that even in a moment like this it needed to be aired,
As though while you were stripping away my crown and beating at my heart with your monstrous manhood I was meant to be flattered.
I suppose that’s the message society has always dictated about women: being considered attractive by males was all that mattered.
Perhaps then society, too, is to blame for my heart that’s shattered.
The taunting tendrils of the sea are at my chin now.
It’s funny how I’m immersed in water but still remain unclean.
It’s funny how they said I was lying because you’re only seventeen,
How they frowned when I told them what happened, how dare I share something so obscene.
The sea is loud tonight,
But not as loud as the message I received when I gave them my account:
I’m a woman, so my voice doesn’t count.
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