She was just sixteen,
She still cheerfully helped her mum in their little canteen,
Pale she looked,scrawny,fragile and thin,
And from her look you would doubt she was already a teen,

She was full of Life,
Even while working or chopping with knife,
Her nights,usually filled with worry and strife,
Constantly,yet she dreamt that one day she will be a wife,

It was time for her usual afternoon hawking,
Rice and beans at noon she was usually selling,
Through the streets and market she was always plying,
Just to help with the burden her mother alone was carrying,

Suddenly she heard a frightful loud bang,
A surge of pain like the strike of a cobra's fang,
Her whole body seared and writhed with great pang,
While from a distance an unattended cell phone continuously rang,

All around her corpses scattered about lying,
It was hard to breath but yet she was trying,
She was cold and numb and also crying,
And she knew right there that she was slowly dying,

She clutched to her bleeding side as she lay down,
Dust and blood covered her brightly coloured gown,
Her soul quietly slipping free and totally unbound,
As she relived fond memories of her beloved home town,

Wondered why I haven't yet named her,
Well,that's cos she could be anyone's sister,
Maybe Azeezat, Nkechi, Funmilola or Deborah,
But the painful fact is that she is now gone forever,

And just like an abruptly ended dream,
Her whole ambitions and desires were trimmed,
By our fellows wielding arms with utmost grim,
While all I could utter was a loud grievance  scream.