Emenen
Very few places have the wonder that surrounds my hillside work environment. I had started to stay back at work till very late not necessarily because I enjoyed the work. In the early evenings, everywhere turns mildly dark. The kind that was too dark to recognize a face approaching but not dark enough not to see that one was coming. Once I was done for the day, I'd go sit by a large lonely stone that felt cold and welcoming and faced the hill. It always feels wonderful to finally be alone. I'd light an incense stick and watch as the smoke slowly danced and mixed with the fog. Nothing pleases me more than a beautiful and nice-smelling space. Eventually, both the smoke and fog will hover over my head and go up to the sky. The sky will usually be lit with bright stars and dark purple hues. All I do while seated will be to try and make out shapes and forms from them, and sometimes from the fog.
My cue to head home is usually when the dew starts descending and the cold stone gets damp. As much as I love the rain, I hate damp places so I gather my things together, incense stick in mouth, and hurry to my car and head home.
At the height of the cliff
after the feat has been accomplished
with the wind billowing
and the clear sky so near you can almost touch it
you ask yourself what all this has been for
the answer is in the skips of your heartbeat
the jittery dance of your stomach
and the wide smile sitting across your face
this, right here, is where happiness resides
Time stops flying when loss takes residence at your home.
Wings cut short with nowhere else to go
He sits still with you when grief shows up as your dining companion.
There like he isn't
Staring as an obedient child does, quiet, watching and unmoving
as insanity comes over too
to make deals with you all-alluringly
If only he could do something
push memory away from force-feeding you watered-down dreams
or offer you his company and comfort instead
when death winks your way to come share a drink with him
Time does nothing, none of these things
he just watches on still.
with wings cut short and nowhere to go
he may sit with you
but does nothing else
because he is as helpless as you are
when these dreaded visitors come through your door
I have to garner the strength to make a thank-you meal and send it to Solo later. Scrimping my savings together to hire a private investigator to follow Philo around had been a plum idea after all. It stung, having to go to all that length, even sacrificing my savings on the way, but I concluded that it was for a good reason. I not only found out that he was cheating on me, but I also had the misfortune of discovering he liked his men in all the ways my insecurities and fantasies manifested: heavy-set, hairy and devastatingly beautiful men. Aliu went after men who looked like gods amongst men. Men who looked like him. He didn't chase my kind, I always suspected, I chased his. I had begged and stalked him until he became mine. Deep down I always knew such a bounty was too good to be mine so I held it too close to my heart. Once again, Solo had been right. Loving a Nigerian man is like building the castle of your dreams, adorning it with your richest fantasies only to find yourself trapped in it when he uses his very hands to scatter that castle.
I'd let my wings fly
like the butterfly on high
I'd want to soar through skies
as I listen to the wind's lullabies
but something keeps holding me back
like chains on leg they make me slack
whats this curse of the sluggards I've inherited
to observe life pass me by neglected
isn't it better not to dream at all
why long for places beyond your soil
To live diseased
is to exist as stones do
amidst flowers
vitality, growth and beauty flowing through
impregnable to your innards
you're unfeeling,
yes, you are
I began to wander off a lot from the age of nine, allowing myself to go places even when I was told not to. One day on my usual walks, I came upon a finding that led me to the conclusion that the world was a discovery book and I only had to have the courage to turn the pages. That day, I had wandered off after being told by my mama to stay put. I sauntered into thick trees that took the shape of humans with their branches spread out wide as though in greeting. I climbed old-looking rocks that wore smiles and twinkles. After some minutes of meandering, I reached a bubbling brook and crossed it only to discover a place my nine-year-old mind could only describe as wonderland. Ahead of me lay a stoned pathway to a blue-roofed gigantic thatch house. The house looked magnificent, like a dwelling for royals. All about were little thatch houses of varied colours with goats grazing outside them. The environment was serene except for the occasional chirping birds and whispering butterflies. I got bewitched upon seeing the tallest women I had ever laid eyes on emerge from some of the houses. They all were on white soft cotton materials from head to toe. Their ears shot out from their headwraps as though in an attempt to kiss the sky and then tell it a secret. These women were olive-skinned with large heads and on their lips shone the deepest shade of black I had ever seen. When one of them smiled at me, stars came down from the sky to reside on her face. More women came out of the houses and headed towards a wide-mouthed well. They surrounded it and took turns fetching something from it. It was liquid, only it wasn't water.
Nokki's Harbour had the greenest waters Elo had ever laid eyes on. The body shone so brightly that everything around it had a reflection. The vast expanse of the sky with birds spread across it, the colourful little boats, and the houses mostly made of bricks sent joyful spikes of excitement up his spine. This place looked like it was drawn out of a utopian book. Like a master artist possessed by a mad genie painted this. After soaking in the scenery for what seemed like an eternity, Elo headed north of the harbour towards the village to a quaint little breakfast cottage. Just a day in and he was already glad the breakup happened. Nothing else could have pushed him out as fast into the world.
The first time I saw The White Man, he wore an earring on only one ear. It was beautifully crafted in the ways of my father and grandfather, with a feather and tiny brown soil-looking beads that circled the stud. Gifts from my people have started pouring in, I thought to myself. The hand that offers food to the lion eventually gets eaten alongside the meal.
As The White Man passed me by, I hissed spittle to the ground, looked him in the eyes and the augury of his future as it intertwined with ours rose from the earth penetrating my nostrils with vivid intoxication.
The White Man will leave our land, return with palates that will be forced down our throats as we get called tasteless. And when we finally learn to dine at his tables, my goddaughter would be stoned at dawn for having a liking to a taste not made from her mother's kitchen.
A darker hue of loneliness and an unquenchable despair sprouts from my stomach when I look at the bundle in my hands now. Just two weeks ago, I feverishly dared God to show its sadistic face in this tiny one so I could smash it against the walls. I longed to turn to bloody red the rosiness that flushed from these cheeks, no other colour would've better painted my torture on this floor. I could not bring myself to accept such a bargain. She and God, if ever there was one, were to blame. It has been only two weeks.
Last week, I caught the bundle smiling. I let myself see it. Her smile, even if only for a moment, loosened the icy grip loss has had over my heart since Sarah favoured the other side over me. I never believed she would betray me so. How could she have the strength to let go of this world with me still in it? She always told me she loved me. To death. What did that even mean?
I met Sarah on a rainy day walking home from the supermarket nearby. Id tripped into the mud and like the saviour she was meant to be, she lent me a hand. From the second I set my eyes on her, Sarah became the light that guided my insufferable passage through the rocky planes of life. In the end, I wasn't even seen fit to have that happiness for long.
Why the hell does God leave this mockery of a replica in my hands? To thunderously laugh in my face? To remind me of my powerlessness in neither truly having nor completely losing the only thing I ever dared to call mine? Because yes, Sarah is gone, but why does she smile at me this very moment?
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