“When the Cane Is an Oath”
He stood, not stripped—revealed.
A man forged from dusk,
his back an altar to memory,
His silence permission.
The one who held the cane did not wield power—
He held promise.
Not to harm,
but to hold him in the fire
until the steel sang through.
Swish.
The first stroke landed softly,
like a truth confessed into a collarbone.
Crack.
The second wrote heat between the shoulder and spine—
Scripture in a tongue older than shame.
No safe word spoken.
None needed.
Their covenant was the air itself—
thick with shea and sweat,
a chorus of breath and bruise.
He did not flinch.
He did not cry.
He received.
Every stripe
a psalm.
Every sting
An Amen.
When it ended,
He knelt not in pain,
But in peace.
His skin now sang what his heart could not say:
“I am seen. I am disciplined. I am whole.”
“Inheritance of the Switch — Redefined”
The raffia mat warmed beneath bare skin,
and the air was thick with kòlà whispers.
He didn’t kneel in shame—
He offered himself,
a man carved from fire and consent.
The elder’s wrist, wrapped in red coral, moved—
And the cane answered like a talking drum.
Not punishment.
But performance.
A rite.
An invocation of tradition and trust.
"Ìdá jo, kí a má bínú."
(The cut may burn, but do not be angry.)
Whick.
It stung like pepper pulled fresh from the stalk.
Whick.
It bloomed bright crimson against dusk-dark skin—
a language older than apology.
This was no child’s lesson.
This was the ceremony of surrender:
a man, bound in silence,
willing to be unmade and remembered
by each stroke that praised his obedience.
"Ọmọlúàbí ní wọn ńṣe."
(This is how one becomes a nobleman.)
Pictures are from Nigerion Sweetheart .
The poem is from Discipline Matters.
