When I was five years old I wanted to be a paleontologist

All my friends wanted to be princesses

Nobody told them this was unrealistic

But my mother had no problem telling me

All the bones and all the fossils

Had been exhumed

And there was nothing left.

I was never allowed to be a dreamer,

Unless my dreams were to be a nurse

I couldn’t be a director

Or a photographer

Or even a teacher

“You have the gift,” she’d say,

“It would be selfish to let a talent like that go to waste”

So I kept my wings clipped

And followed her example

And her mother’s example

And her mother’s mother’s example

I worked on an ambulance

I had the gift for awhile

Until I saw contortions

 Insides out

Gaping mouths and bluing lips

I lost that gift somewhere in transporting a graying man

With paper thin skin

And shit-stained sheets

To a cold hospital room where I know he would die soon.

I have a new dream now

To my mother’s disapproval

A passion that isn’t so cold and calculating

Where I can help the relationships between countries

As a Foreign Affairs Officer

Nigeria is unstable and it’s conflicted

But I guess I know a little something

About being at war

With yourself.