I am Not who I am By Abimbola Lagunju

I remember the hesitation,
my yet unanswered question,
“To be or not to be”, and on
which side of infant statistics to stand:
Infant mortality or Child survival.
An undecided lone voter,
curious, but afraid of their world,
their calendar of
Six hundred and sixty six days crammed into a year.

Someone decided for me,
I heard shots, hormonal shots from
glandular guns assisted by syringe-propelled grenades,
Boom…..boom,
I scampered for safety;
A rough hand, un- tempered by latex gloves
pulled on my head, hard.
They said to cross the bridge before the dam broke
and save me from myself....

Taken into cephalic bondage,
I take anything, I agree to everything.
When I ask questions, minor questions,
I am silenced with a cocktail of glucose,
to hyper the minority hypo, they say.

Fed on stabiliser E334, emulsifier B654,
low fat, cholesterol-poor, sugar-free, carbohydrate-starved,
CFC-safe, low-tar, high-fibre, caffeine free, nicotine high,
electron-free, atom-rich, tall and short molecules’ diet,
I AM
a walking multinational (quoted on the stock exchange), where
oxidizing agents work for reducing companies.
I AM the malleable concrete
of wired organics stranded on inorganic DNAs
conditioned to conform,
bribed with genetically modified dreams.

Will God recognize His creature,
this new me, reinvented by competition,
pushed to the edge by profit margins, and
driven out of Eden by market forces ?

I AM certainly not who I AM.