Collective Grief

This two-part non-fiction/poetry piece is my tribute to the lives lost and souls wounded in the fight for a Better Nigeria through police reform. In the collective grief, I hope that the spirit of the resistance heals and we continue to raise our voices in dissent of the current reality.

Early in 2020, I was grieving the loss of my godmother and I couldn’t believe how much pain I was in. I wrote in my journal thinking I knew what grief was and what it does. I was wrong. Now I write to say that I don’t really understand grief but I feel it. Grief comes in many forms. I’ve come upon a new grief, a collective grief.

The loss of protesters to state violence in my hometown is an ongoing tragedy and the collective grief of every person who stood for the cause is palpable.

The grief of the masses is like a collective consciousness with only one emotion. In the group, grief shifts, bends, adjusts for the character of the collective.

Bound by grief, the collective looks for relief We laugh, We dance, We cry All with a sombre disposition Finding comfort in the ties of loss that bind us This soliloquy I write is for the collective love It belies the grief, that love For a life fraught with struggle Its a thread in the grief loom Weaving endlessly with the pain Til the time comes to hem and fold The collective grief goes neatly In the box marked ‘life’.

Thank you for reading. Visit this article on the #ENDSARS movement if you are uninformed.