The kitchen is oppressive

The kitchen is oppressive
Especially when my mother is in there
Telling me how much salt she thinks I should put in the dodo I am frying for my stomach alone

I keep getting flashblacks
Of a book I read by Sefi Atta
Everything Good Will Come

It addresses honestly
The reality the typical African woman faces
From childhood to womanhood

How Enitan's husband refused to speak to her for four months
Even though she was pregnant with his child
How his family expected her to cook them dinner on the day she found out her father had become a prisoner of consciousness

Our mothers teach us how to season meat
But not how to respond when our husbands mistreat us
Or tell us that we are not beautiful

Enitan eventually left Niyi
Her best friend told her she was crazy, but she moved into her dead mother's house
Who also had been invisible to her husband

I once dated a man who did not see me
So I know that it is true when women say a man can love you but not see you
It is not just ingredients for sad poems

Mothers should teach their daughters matters beyond the kitchen
Like how to strike a lethal blow to the Adam's apple
And that meat is not the only muscle that needs seasoning