Bring Back Our Girls

 by Susu Jeffrey

Bring Back Our Girls.

Bring Back Our Girls

since April 15th, 2014

it’s been months

& months

forever for teenage girls assembled

for their final physics exam.

Kidnapped

in the middle

of the night.

Bring Back Our Girls.

Bring back our 276 girl students

or is it 329 girls

elite young scholars

future doctors, teachers, lawyers

the cream of their Nigerian villages

teenagers, reaching

into adulthood—

a little nervous about the science exam

awakened in the middle of the night

by gunfire, herded into vehicles

carted off into the rainforest,

Eugina, Lydia, Maryanne, Magret.

Kidnapped by men who said—

who lied, “we are protectors”

rapists, slavers, woman-haters

men who cover their fear with night.

Men who kidnap school girls

who just want to go to school

Ruth, Rhoda, Rebecca, Rejoice

who plan to grow up, to live,

have birthdays, have children

dreams, interrupted in the middle of the night

by a fraternity of murderers

enraged by smart girls.

Saraya, Comfort, Grace, Fatima

2 groups of girls escaped. Others transported

to Chad, Cameroon, sold into marriage,

or assaulted, tied to trees & left to die

by men who kidnap school girls

in the middle of the night.

Pathetic men who wake-up teenage girls

Glory, Esther, Awa, Naomi

whose ancestors escaped European slavers

on the Atlantic coast of western Africa

men who claim their god okays slavery,

bachelor gangs after academic stars

Tabitha, Dorcas, Ayesha, Rose, Sarah

tortured because they want

to go to school.

Men—men? Men who kidnap school girls

need to learn to be

MEN

who might consider girls

equals—

sisters, cousins, partners

future mothers, aunties, grandmothers

professors, political leaders,

instead of open season

on African girls

Bring Back Our Girls.

Bring back a politic to empower the nation

of Nigeria whose soldiers

had 4 hour’s warning

before the raid

but didn’t show up

because girls don’t count

& it’s suicide against

the over-armed hyenas.

It is not

about Islam.

Bring Back Our Girls

bring back men who love children & learning

& pride themselves on their girls’ gifts.

Bring back family men

with jobs, with homes safe

for girls to leave for school

& come back.

Bring Back Our Girls

back home, to family, to school

to girlhood

to just grow up with your friends

Bring Back Our Girls.

                                        No copyright, 2014, S.J.

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