The Woman In Me

The Woman in Me Like an old lantern hanging in my mother's room, I have learnt to hold a little light even when the night comes too soon. Flicker, flicker I have seen darkness before. I have watched the flame bend, but I have never forgotten what I was made to burn for. They taught me, “Sit properly, you are a girl.” “Lower your voice.” “Cover yourself.” “Who will marry you?” But who told them that a woman's life was a waiting room for a husband? I have seen mothers turn five hundred naira into dinner, turn tiredness into laughter, turn “we cannot” into “we will manage.” I have watched girls trade childhood for responsibility, dreams for survival, and silence for safety. How many brilliant girls have buried their voices because the world called confidence “disrespect”? How many dreams have been folded into old clothes and kept beneath a mattress because school fees came first? Yet Look at us. Still here. Still breathing. Still building. From the woman selling akara before sunrise to the girl reading under a dim bulb, from the mother praying over her children to the young woman chasing a dream nobody else can see Look at us. We are not just surviving. We are becoming. And when I think of the woman I want to be, I don't imagine perfection. I imagine courage. A woman who can be soft without being weak, kind without being used, and loud when silence becomes injustice. A woman who can say, “This is not okay,” without wondering who will be offended. A woman who knows that marriage is not her certificate of worth, that motherhood is not her only purpose, and that her dreams do not need permission to exist. So I carry my old lantern. Flicker, flicker through every disappointment, through every unanswered prayer, through every door that refused to open. Flicker, flicker I may bend, I may break, I may cry, but I will not go dark. Because somewhere inside me is the little girl who once dreamed without knowing how difficult life could be. And for her, I will keep the light. Flicker, flicker I am becoming. Flicker, flicker I am becoming. Flicker, flicker I am becoming the woman I once prayed to meet.