Our Lagos

My Lagos is not your Lagos
Yet our Lagos is the same
My Lagos is not your Lagos
Even though the sky burns
With the same yellow sun
and the same white clouds
Dance across the blue background
It is the same Lagos
And yet it is different
My Lagos of endless commute
Traffic jams and uncomfortable buses
Monotonous work and poor reward
Is not the same as your Lagos
With your posh cars and
Beautiful flat on the island
Of boat rides to Takwa bay on weekends
Or plane rides to Abuja or PH
To relax in big mansions
My Lagos of noisy nightclubs
Where rich white expatriates
Have their pick of shameless damsels
Or maybe just poor and hungry girls
Whose only career is to sleep their way
Into affluence and plenty
Is not the same as your Lagos
Of the sandy Kuramo beach
Where in the dark of the night
Amid the empty beer bottles and other debris
Strewn along the sands
People engage in the oldest exchange
Sex for money, money for sex
Thirteen year old babies
With scarcely developed breasts
Sell themselves for the price of
A bottle of beer or a new shirt

Lagos is a myriad of different lives
Yet it is the same Lagos
Different views and yet one landscape
My Lagos is not your Lagos
Yet our Lagos is one Lagos