Incomplete.

When you have the urge to waste your life before it begins. When your own future means nothing anymore cause you've lost  faith in yourself. When you feel like slitting your wrists and watching your own blood run out. Would it be a sin to hate your life so much it hurts you to live? Would it be a sin to relieve yourself of the continuous pain you endure each day? Would you still have to suffer in eternal damnation after hurting so much in this life? Wouldn't God be a bit merciful to grant you that closure, that relief you need in your afterlife?
Tolani lost her mom to an unknown disease. She fought to save her life despite their state of destitution. Truth was that her mother was destined to die right from the first morning she complained of the terrible headaches. Friends and family turned their backs on them and even then, no matter the amount she would have come up with, she could only afford the local clinic whose efforts to stamp out the disease were hampered by a poverty of medical supplies and the negligence of the doctors. Now she was tossed around among relatives who used her but never wanted to keep her. She was presently with Uncle Arinze who carried his too-drunk self to her bed instead of his wife's. And his wife detested her for it, making her work for the penance of her husband's sin. Tolani now carried her uncle's child in her womb. She could no longer dream of a life, for a future. The abomination in her womb took all that away.

14 January 2014.

Some of us live to not forget. We carry scars heavy as bags of cement that crush our hearts so hard sometimes we fight to breathe. When love turns into sour milk, or when you give your heart to someone who cares just enough to let it fall into nothingness, or when you trust enough to believe in someone to never fail you, to always have your back. You trust that person enough to believe anything.
Loving someone is different for me. Exposing a wild part of myself that I had not understood enough to tame. So I avoided being emotionally involved with anyone for the fear of being too extreme. Until him. He made me feel safe enough to bare all of myself in the most shameless way. Maybe I wanted him to love me so bad I ignored to see whether he actually did love me. I mean why would you want to make someone who claims to love you, love you when he says he already does. I was too busy fighting for his attention, trying to revive our dead conversations to accept the obvious. I'm still trying to understand what I would have done differently. I would have never known.
Something about him made time and my breath cease for fleeting seconds. Whenever I got his messages, the times I got desperate enough to dial his number and when we went on dates. He wasn't what I wanted but he was enough. Enough for me to love blindly and ignore what I considered as petty shortcomings.
What seems petty is just what we are allowed to see. The exposed small part of something bigger lurking in the darkness. I feared for what hid in the darkness behind your eyes and inside your mind. The darkness brings a lot of things along with it. The darkness that night brought more than I could handle. I remember my excitedness. The dark lace lingerie I had on under my danshiki. The one I paid through my teeth for. The one that was to make your jaw drop and your pupils dilate. I had the keys to your apartment. It was to be a surprise. You thought I was at the other end of lagos, sleeping already maybe. It was 11pm. First thing I heard was the shower. Then laughter. You were not alone. Or you were. Something was off. I expected the imaginary girl I had always feared. But I walked into something my poor mind would have never conjured. Another male was with him in the shower. They held each other and laughed. The most horrifying part was the kiss. How they kissed so passionately. That was when my knees couldn't keep me standing and I stumbled back so I feel backwards, luckily finding the wall for support. It was his best friend. Again he took my breath away but differently this time, this time I wished to die.

5 Things We Need to Learn.

-Don't force someone else's medicine down your throat.
Mama Bayo's husband hit her always. He gave her scars that could not be hidden. Scars that were difficult to lie about.Her friend, Mama Ibeji had a similar case. She poisoned her husband and now she lives without fear. Mama Bayo took the kitchen knife and stabbed her husband repeatedly. Her son who watched her butcher his father, shot her in the head. Bayo loved his father. He was his father's son.
-Be a good friend regardless.
Tola was a good friend to Ore. Even when Ore started trafficking drugs, she worried about him enough to report him to the police to have him arrested. Ore would come out a better man because of Tola.
-Forgive always.
Amanda's father never forgave her for letting herself be molested when she was barely 7. He lashed her repeatedly with the iron buckle of his belt. The belt cut her skin deeper than the assault she barely understood. Amanda never forgive her dad for it. She doesn't remember being molested but she remembers her father's hateful words and the belt buckle...
-Avoid bad romance.
Joseph liked Lara since first grade. He'd do the sweetest things like give her flowers and write love poems. He'd dream of her smile. After graduation, Lara began to like him back. But he was always too busy to reply her. He had moved on to his best friend Tolu, who he discovered he was in love with...
-Live light.
Carry no burdens. Learn to let go. Find happiness in the littlest things. Pamela let go of all her lovers. Even George who proposed the week before to dedicate herself to God and the church. She found the joy of the Lord in His temple. His temple was her body. She'd touch herself each night till she made herself cum.

Don't mock a pain you have not endured

Many times we hate ourselves for being alone. We blame ourselves for the many times we opened ourselves up to people who didn't understand enough to stay. Sometimes we give up and give in to defeat and silence, strengthening our pain and our shame. We live inside the corners of ourselves for the fear of being discovered for what we are. Broken. Hurt. Damaged.

A lesson I learnt; "Don't mock a pain you have not endured". Halima gave in midnight showers. Something about the way the water reassured her that she was not alone even when she still had to face her lonely cold bed. She'd curl up and cry her eyes out for the people she trusted enough to see the real her. The people she wanted to stay. The ones who didn't. She gave into songs with lyrics that cut her deeper than knives. Songs that made her remember who she was. Lonely. She belonged too deeply to herself to belong to anyone now.

Nobody could want to be with her like she did. Or understand her like she did. Yet they wondered why she didn't blossom like the other flowers, why she didn't blush foolishly like the other girls. Like Mariam who blushed and laughed in her high pitched voice to everyman's joke. Who made them feel like the men they were. They flocked around her like bees. She never knew a lonely bed. Halima believed in love enough to try to be honest. She told each man of her burden. Of how her father crept in her room every night after she turned thirteen. How her mother was to lost to want to notice. How she bore scars that wouldn't heal. No one wanted a damaged girl. Some laughed waving her tale off. All of them ran.

Tonight she's fading away to memories. She's fading away to her own darkness. Somehow she wanted the comfort her own death would give her. She slit her wrists and  laughed at her own pain in the same mocking way they all did till the red filled her bath tub

"Do you love her?"

“Do you love her?” the woman asked eying me suspiciously.

I thought of Georgina and why I got so attracted to her in the first place.

“She’s like a sister to me, really smart with a good heart” I told Mrs Adeniyi, looking her right in her eyes.

Georgina was smart above everything, smart and good. She was one of the few I found a certain peace in.

Georgina was also big boobs, nice ass, and a good kisser too. Georgina was always wet. Always wet when my finger or my tongue found her down there. Georgina got me turned on above what I thought was possible. Abandoning our friends, sneaking to dark corners, just because we couldn’t wait to get out hands on each other.

I loved Georgina high, she was always horny when high. I watched her count the Christmas lights dreamily through heavy eyes. Right then I wanted to claim her for myself. Devour her mouth with mine, kiss her breasts and suck at her nipples, part her legs and lick her wetness off, stroking her clit just to get her wetter. Hear her moan the way she does and hold on to me desperately not to fall in the gutter.

Georgina and I liked to pass the day with each other. She made me see the positive parts of life that gave me strength enough to hope. Sometimes I worried I felt something more for her, but I never dared to ask myself the question till the woman blurted it out demanding an answer..

“Women don’t drink, smoke or kiss each other on the mouth”, she was saying. I tried hard to act like I was paying attention. A memory of Georgina’s lips on mine flashed in my mind. Soft, inviting, giving. “You will not keep a man with this attitude. Women are reserved, domestic, religious…” She eying me again, “Can you cook, clean, take care of your husband?”. I hated to cook. I was one of the few that found the issue of desperately impressing your husband to keep him from cheating repulsive. “My pussy is good enough to keep any man”, I’d say. Whoever my husband would be he should learn to make sacrifices too.

  The woman was still talking. Maybe I loved Georgina, maybe I just cared so much about her. This wasn’t the first time I loved a girl. I remembered what it felt like. The confusion, all that hurt and heartbreak. I didn’t want to go back to that. Georgina was different. This was different.

A dream can be the highest point of a life.

 

A dream can be the highest point of a life. He always talked about how my mind was the most beautiful place he had ever seen. He talked about the world he saw in my eyes, the one he wanted to be a part of. He said that again as his lips gave soft kisses to the length of my neck, hands on my ass drawing my close to feel his hardness. He smiled at me and my whole world would fall apart. I was like melting chocolate in his hands. ‘I will always love you” he promised as his lips claimed mine with a vengeful purpose. That was when I knew it was a dream. Cyril would never promise me love. I wish I was able to realize our eight months relationship was a dream too and woken up just in time to save my heart. I woke up to a new pain. Reminiscing and bleeding afresh...

“Remember there's a part of you that no pain can ever break”, Cassandra said softly holding me close. I knew deep down inside she was scared I may resolve to suicide. I was never the happy kind. I remember how I always struggled to find happy moments to keep me warm and now Cyril took all that away with him, leaving me struggling for the willpower to live. The darkness was beginning to show on me. I grew leaner. My voice began to disappear. My eyes hid from the world, retreating into the depths of my head’s dreaming. My bones became more visible. My blouse began to slip from my shoulders. It was a mirror reflecting what was inside. Somehow I wanted him to stick around so he could see what he did, behold what I had become. I wish before he took off running, he stayed to watch my heart break. Watch me bleed for him, for his lies, for the promises he didn’t keep. They would all tell you they wouldn’t hurt you, but then it just makes it more exciting for them when they let your heart fall and smash into the littlest pieces.

“Your dark days are not forever”

Thelma’s whole head was sick, her whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot to the head, there was no soundness in it. It was full of bruises, sores and bleeding wounds. Most of them unseen. She had been hurt a bit too much for her health. Her emptiness was like that of a desolate land. She sings herself to sleep each night, songs of heart break, the rhythmless song of the names of her lovers. The ones she had given her heart to. The ones that had broken it. She had known strangers, maybe a little too many in the name of looking for love. The strength of the poor is in their hunger. We are known to thirst most for the things that we are deprived of. So she tried to ignore the many strange hands that knew her body. She tried to make these people stay and grow to love her. Maybe her desperation made her ugly, maybe it made them run. But at the end of it she was cold and alone. Soon she stopped believing. It all become dreams and fairy tales till she met Bola. Love is love, I’ve come to believe. Wherever you find it, as long as it is true, hold onto it and never let it go. Bola had been a lesbian since high school. On the other hand, Thelma had known only men. But when friendship blossoms in something we cannot explain, the unexpected happens. From comforting heart-to-hearts to heated make out sessions, Thelma found happiness and knew true companionship. The dark shadows that clouded her countenance have risen and she smiles these days, smiles as bright as the sun.

Ojo had been searching for a job for forever. Maybe a bit longer than that. His face had lines that told stories of his journey of hardship, of poverty, of problems. Mama Ijesha never stopped being one of his prominent problems. His landlady had extreme ways of embarrassing those who couldn’t pay rents before the set deadlines. She had called him all sorts of names, thrown him out, and more. His fellow tenants were cold to him, always looking at him with scorn like he was the cause of their poverty as well. They would murmur behind him, some of the women hissed in contempt and snapped their fingers at his back. His mother was sick in the village, nearing her death more each day as he couldn’t afford to save her. A poor man cannot find sleep in the midst of his many problems. He had gone from church to church looking for prosperity and financial healing. He only came out poorer than before. He couldn’t even afford a wife. Laide, the girl he intended to get married to, could not bear enough to wait for him. She insulted him to his face and became another man’s wife. Poverty ate deep, deep into his small sack of garri, deep into his worn out clothes, deep into the holes in his shoes. He had given up.  People had to be poor for others to be called rich. He was beginning to embrace his fate. Till Mrs Anjola got interested in him and what he could offer. She paved a way out of his misery for pleasurable satisfaction. He got a job through keeping her warm on cold nights and working himself so hard inbetween her legs. He got new clothes and shoes, and an apartment spitting on Mama Ijesha in the face. He was able to pay the hospital bills for the treatment of his sick mother and live a comfortable life. Good life is showing on him, you could hardly see those hard lines on his now chubby face.