Melanin Monroe

In the beginning, the potter moulded me from sun baked clay,

He called me brown skin girl, trapped the sun in my eyes,

And they turned rouge, the colour of the Sahara dawn,

Ebony pixie dust was sprinkled on my skin,

And when the rain fell on it, it smelled like petrichor,

The scent of fresh leaves and cocoa butter,

Black currant flowed in my veins, seeped through my skin and coloured me nightshade,

I became the dark bombshell, Melanin Monroe, the S.I unit of radiance,

I toppled Eurocentric beauty standards that say the lighter the better,

I say, the darker the berry, the sweeter its juice,

Beauty in the eyes of all, the beholders and not colonizers,

African hair, kinky hair, afro hair,

I love my afro puffs, round and curvy like the derriere of an Igbo woman,

Sprinkled with streaks of mahogany, coloured like honey,

The gods of nature were kind to my people,

My hair is my identity, the genes of my ancestors passed down to me,

A heritage intertwined like cornrows, held by strings of threads,

My mother’s DNA sprouting from within me,

Adorning my head like a crown, full as the Amazonian forests,

Growing thick and strong like the lion’s mane,

Gulping up oils while basking in the sun’s full glory,

Under running waters, it shrinks like a tortoise into its shell,

Only to bloom like morning glory when the sun comes up,

It curls on my fingers and I let it bounce back like a warrior,

Each strand a testament to my unwavering confidence to be proud of me,

They said afro puffs were not in vogue, cornrows have no place on the cover of Vogue,

I used to hide it, overdosing it on chemicals that weakened its edges,

Now it is sober and I am letting it breathe,

I refuse to reject my traits because of twisted beauty perceptions,

My hair is locked down; I am not in dread of what people will say,

Fulani braids with the wooden beads, Bantu knots tied down to my roots,

Shuku, one million braids, just like me, my hair is versatile,

Rebel against the standard beauty culture, it flies high in the winds,

I am black Aphrodite, Ashanti, Ugegbe, the Southern belle,

This hour glass figure of mine will stand the test of time,

Like the pyramids of Giza, I am the ninth wonder of the world,

The jigida jiggles round my waist announcing my arrival,

Stepping into my year of becoming, I am coming into myself,

I stand in front of the mirror and fight this mask, this internalized colourism,

Emancipating myself from mental slavery,

And accepting the black, strong woman I see.

about the poet

Udochukwu Chidera also known as Chidera is a Nigerian writer and pharmacist of Igbo descent. Chi Deraa won the second prize in the 2024 Dissolution Climate Change Essay Contest organized by Litfest Bergen Norway. She is a recipient of the Illino Media Writing Residency and won the 2024 Factory HQ TV Short Story Series contest. She was shortlisted for the 2024 AKACHI CHUKWUEMEKA PRIZE FOR LITERATURE. Her poem has also made it to the PIN Best Poems of 2024 Anthology. She also won second prize in the 2023 AS ABUGI PRIZE and the 2024 IKENGA SHORT STORY PRIZE. She was top three in the  2023 E.C MICHEALS SHORT STORY PRIZE. She took the third position in the 2023 BKPW Poetry Contest. She was also shortlisted for the 2023 The Green We Left Behind CNF contest organized by the Arts Lounge Literary Magazine. She was top 10 in the 2023 LIGHT poetry contest. She is the inaugural winner of the 2023 monthly writing contest for the Hilltop Creative Arts Foundation, Lagos chapter. She won the 2022 Movement of the People Poetry Contest,  the 2022 Shuzia Songs of Zion Poetry Contest, the 2022 Shuzia Prose Contest. She won first runner-up in the prose category at the 2022 Lagos Hilltop Creative Arts Foundation contest.  She is a contributor/ forthcoming at IHRAF Thorn, Tears, and Treachery Anthology for the Sudanese War, Non-Profit Quarterly Magazine, Love and Other Stupid Things Anthology, Fortunate Traveller, Indaba Bafazi SFF Anthology, Inner Worlds Zine, Feminists In Kenya, Taevo Publishing, 2022 Chinua Achebe Poetry/Essay Anthology, Conscio Magazine, Ngiga Review, World Voices Magazine, Valiant Scribe, Our Stories Defined Anthology, Writer’s Hangout Initiative, Arts Lounge Literary Magazine, amongst others.