Delivered at the 2025 Performative Book Fair, Kampnagel

The greatest lie I ever told myself was that I was not powerful. 

You see, this lie did not originate from me. By that, I mean it was externally imposed on me. It was fed to me through the world around me first, and not knowing better, not having the skills to self-define within the context I found myself in, I gave in to the lies and believed what the world told me about myself.

You see, I come from a people whose fabric of existence was distorted and torn apart when they were invaded from the north by the Muslim Jihadists and from the south by British colonialists. In the midst of what was a traumatic incident and the continued traumatization of attempting to adjust to the new existence imposed on them at gunpoint, my ancestors found it necessary to rebuild their lives based on the narratives forced upon them by the imperialist forces that had conquered them.

These new narratives were built on the subjugation of my people’s way of life. My people’s existence, the cultural practices that informed and shaped every one of our communities and gave our lives meaning, were condemned by the forces that had conquered my ancestors and thus led them to begin to doubt the validity of their existence. All of a sudden, we were not a proud and fierce people anymore; we became hands for the imperialist machine. Our daily lives became a pursuit of everything dictated as noble and righteous by our conquerors. 

It was under these circumstances that my existence was negotiated and finalized when, in 1990, my mother gave birth to me in a small government hospital in Kafanchan, Kaduna state. I came into the world as we all do, young, full of life and energy, and completely different in mannerisms and appearance from the two children my mother had before me. 

It was in my family of origin that I first learned how dangerous dissimilarity can be. As I grew older, I became the target of jokes from family members about the size of my lips, the darkness of my complexion, and even the fullness of my hair, which I always thought was great! My family of origin became the first site of my ghosting, the first place I was rendered invisible, and in the few moments I was seen, it was mainly those things that were ‘unpleasant’ about me that were highlighted. 

Do you know what it means for a child to exist feeling uncared for and unseen? For me, it meant that my sense of self was distorted, and that could be a generous way of putting it, because the truth feels more like I had no sense of self. The world around me entirely shaped my identity, and that world, I mean this world, repeatedly showed me that I was not worthy. My young life was further complicated by the onset of repeated sexual trauma, which continued into my teenage years. Anyone who has survived [childhood] trauma will be familiar with how we, survivors, tend to disappear into ourselves, or dissociate, to survive. By my late teens, I was completely checked out of life and had attempted to check out for good at least twice by the time I was 20.

My longest struggle has been this feeling of being invisible, a ghost existing seemingly alone in a world that has refused to recognize me in the ways my spirit knows to be true. There is no way to understand the depth of loneliness that engulfs a child who needs a nurturing connection with their caregivers; otherwise, they may become poorly adjusted to being human and existing in the world. 

For me, I was estranged from my caregivers and support unit without ever leaving home. I became a shadow at home, a ghost, and at 10 years old, when my family left me in a boarding school against my wishes, it was their final act of betrayal, and it ruined whatever hopes I had of ever finding my way back home.

So, I found myself very early on in my life attempting to make sense of existential topics such as trauma, abandonment, and rejection. Of course, I did not have those words at 5, 8, or even 10 years old, and by 15 years old, I felt completely invisible. Still, it was easier to use the word ‘loner’ to explain my anxiety and avoidance of connection because doing so gave me some agency. It was much easier to convince myself that I had chosen to be alone rather than feel the rejection by family, friend groups, school clubs, and societies from which I desperately sought belonging.

Wikipedia describes Ghosting as “the practice of suddenly ending all communication, avoiding contact with another person without any apparent warning or explanation, and ignoring subsequent attempts to communicate… Ghosting is often seen as an easy escape from confrontation or emotional discomfort, facilitated by the anonymity and convenience of online platforms.”

A central aspect of ghosting is the avoidance of communication; the refusal, for whatever reason, to recognize the humanity of another we are dealing with by denying them crucial information that allows them the power and agency of self-determination. Often, and as the wiki definition emphasizes, this refusal is an act of cowardice; it is the avoidance, whether in ourselves or others, of the feelings and emotions that truly make us human. 

My question is, what do we become when we repeatedly avoid our feelings? Who do we become when we ghost others or are ghosted by others?

Being repeatedly ghosted by the world around me eventually taught me how to ghost myself, how to avoid all the seemingly unpleasant facts, thoughts, and feelings I experienced. It was the ultimate cop-out from life; I, the human Martha, was no longer present. I became a mosaic of the false selves projected onto me by the people who had ghosted me. 

The thing about ghosts is that there is no telling when one will become a poltergeist- that disruptive spirit whose only wish is to be recognized and thus set free. 

I became a poltergeist in 2023 after being ghosted by the woman I loved and shared a home with. She had gradually begun ghosting me after we got together two years prior. Still, caught in a love haze that was partly a desperate attempt for recognition, I made many excuses for her. I offered explanations for her deliberate and gradual effort to deny me the necessary information and validation to determine whether I wanted to continue my relationship with her. 

So, early in 2023, when it was clear that I was once again on the path to being banished into complete obscurity, something within me cracked and gave way. I became a raging spirit, the poltergeist who spat fire from a well of deep pain that precedes my Earthly existence. My memoir was written by that raging poltergeist, the ghost of selves denied and pushed into the shadow, coalescing into one formidable entity demanding recognition. I wrote the book during my first six months in Germany while struggling with being ghosted, yet again, repeatedly in this new city I now call home. 

What I have learned from being a ghost, a poltergeist, and a human being is that the recognition I sought from others had to come from within myself first. There is a saying in one of my Nigerian languages, Hausa,  ‘In dan kura na maganin zawo taiwa kanta.’ The idea is that you cannot give others what you do not have, and any remedy you offer others must be one whose efficacy has been tried, tested, and proven first on yourself. 

I am here today because I finally stopped ghosting myself. Faced with that familiar pain of rejection and abandonment that had haunted me my whole life, I was forced to seek out an alternative way of existing, one that did not require me to rely on external sources for validation and belonging. In the throes of deep heartache, I started to unpack the layers of trauma, rejection, and abandonment that had constituted the ghost I was. I sought to find my authentic self, without these layers etched onto a face I was unfamiliar with. 

As the brilliant ancestor and personal guiding spirit Audre Lorde once wrote, “If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies of me and eaten alive.”

I had lived a life where other people’s fantasies utterly consumed me, and it was writing this memoir that helped me peel myself off from those fantasies and projections. Self-publishing the memoir was my final and boldest act of self-reclamation and determination. After journeying across several realms and rescuing fragmented aspects of myself that had been lost and almost forgotten, it has become imperative to self-define moving forward. Self-publishing became my permission slip to define myself as the writer I have been since I was 7, and push it further by claiming the title of an author. 

Whether or not the rest of the world believes or accepts me as a writer or an author is truly inconsequential. As an artist and a human being, I am interested in defining myself and my experiences to make sense of the world and my place in it. If other people find meaning in my work, that is a bonus because I do not write for them; that is not why I write. I write to see myself, define myself, question and interrogate myself, and perhaps more importantly, to witness myself with compassion for my humanity.

If I leave you with anything today, may it be the reminder that you can only feel ghosted when only external forces shape your self-perception. When you truly know and validate your authentic self, others can only attempt to diminish or ghost you. Their efforts will always fail because you hold the absolute power of self-determination and self-definition.

Allow me to close this presentation with a self-defining excerpt from the final chapter of my memoir, titled ‘Dear Bode, What the Fire Gave Me.’ 

I write: 

“I have slowly eased into knowing I have the right to be here. Although this comes with several enormous responsibilities, the weight of these responsibilities does not compare to the exhilaration of living a life of my choosing.

I have chosen to stay alive, with a fuller understanding that my experience is something I get to create. I am now more eager to do so than I have ever been. The idea that my home is with someone or something has gradually lost its grip on me. Though not rocket science, it has taken me over 30 years to get here, and now that I am, allow me to introduce myself to you: My name is Martha Laraba Sambe—Larry, if you are funky—a descendant of the Sambe and Gbuila peoples of Southern Kaduna State, north-central Nigeria.

I am a queer woman; queer, as in spirit-first and unfazed by the anatomical classifications of souls in human bodies. Woman, as in a feminine spirit assigned female at birth. One who continues to consciously and stubbornly honor the desire of her soul to walk this plane as such, despite limitations projected onto the feminine. By embodying the feminine, I am also a nurturer. Nourishment for the body-mind-spirit naturally and easily abounds in my presence.

I am a lover and a warrior. Lover, as in the light of God that flows through my spirit and constitutes it, is the pure essence of love. I always come in peace until war is brought to me; in that case, I become a warrior. Yet, even as a warrior, I am led by love: love of and for myself.

I am multidimensional, tethering, always, at the edge of, and spilling graciously across multiverses.

I am thankful for you and your guiding light, for everything and everyone who has led me here.

I have arrived. I am home. I am no longer running from myself.”-

Dear Bode, What the Fire Gave Me, pgs 203 & 204.