When we love, we really love...

Everything grows still and tonight I remember you by the silences, the words that didn't fall out of my mouth.

Like the times when we are together with my body leaning on yours or you're holding me or when our fingers just intertwine like they are saying the things our mouth don't say. Sometimes I love you isn't enough to explain that you're the one rooted in my heart with every vein in my body carrying a trace of my longing for you.

I miss you when we aren't together. And sometimes when I'm up at night I'd spread my dreams of us out like stars and wish there was some magic in the world so I could get an eternity with you, one where no one knew who we were, one with no past where our love would be simple and we could be extraordinary together.

2.11.2016

Be hopeful -

Wait for the day you fall so effortlessly for something/someone beyond a fantasy.

It will happen -

Stop settling and giving yourself to the wrong people.

Believe in yourself-

That you deserve better than second hand promises. That you deserve better than someone who isn't afraid to lose you.

Forgive yourself -

For the people you cut yourself and bled for. For the ones that turned their backs at you without even flinching. For wanting to make a home out of another person. For desperately needing someone to hold you as tight as your skin.

Forgive yourself again -

For being ashamed of the things you did in the name of love. Love was the thing that bent you over backwards and fucked  you till you forgot your name. Love was the thing that beat you into acceptance, made you smaller, made you shut your mouth more. Love was the thing that choked you with every breath.

Let go -

Of the truck load of past. It is too heavy for the journey ahead of you. You simply cannot balance all that regret alongside all that dream and ambition.

How to be in a relationship

1. Strive to become what he wants in a woman (starve yourself, do squats, learn to cook numerous delicaces). What you want in a man is not important. You should be grateful you even have a man.

2. Get used to the loneliness that comes with being in a relationship.  No one likes a needy girl. Understand that your man has other important things in his life like football, drinking with his friends, work, family, etc.

3. Accept whatever you get; lies, unreturned phone calls, dates only once a week, lateness to all the dates.

4. Do not complain about anything. Its not attractive to nag. Learn to close your mouth more. Don't argue, it's not necessary.  Your opinions don't matter. His beliefs should be your beliefs.

5.  There will be other girls. You can't simply hold a man down. Be thankful you're the one he chose to be his girlfriend.

6. Sex is the most important factor in a relationship. So darling, don't be naive, open your tight shut legs up for your man. Show him how much of a secret pornstar you are if you want to keep that man.

7. Be a mind reader. You're supposed to know; what your man is thinking of,  when he's in a mood, what he wants.  Men hate talking about feelings and they get upset when you don't understand. So the gift of mind reading is important so you'll know and act in the appropriate manner.

8. Don't have high expectations. Don't have expectations at all. Don't expect romance, flowers or random gifts. They're fairytales. They happen only in movies.

9. Look pretty for your man always; draw your brows, contour your face. He needs to be proud youre his girl. It doesn't matter if he's an ugly baboon and looks as fat as five bags of rice combined. He's your baby, so beautiful on the inside.

10. Forgive yourself for settling for something less than you deserve. It makes it easier.

12.09.2016

My voice was born from years of silence, years of being afraid, years of being ashamed, years of being in unbearable pain - the type of pain where in the deadness of the night you're curled on your bed clutching your heart, barely breathing, sobbing uncontrollably.

My voice is my mother, pouring her entire soul, blood and energy into someone - without wanting anything in return.

My voice is my father who fought wars within- the ones we never understood. All we did was hide from the stern man who always found something wrong with us.

My voice is the girl who was let to be vulnerable,  the one who opened herself up like a flower to the worst kind of dog that preyed on her vulnerability and left her feeling less of a person - questioning whether she was enough.

My voice is the child who was so beautifully born, but carries the burden of his father's words - stupid, bad, worthless, lazy, dumb.

My voice is the girl who is still looking for love at 30. Having no one stepping forward to call you his own does something to you. You begin to think there is something wrong with you. You become desperate to find love in anybody - a wife beater, a drunk, a womaniser.

My voice is the boy who was raped at 5 for the first time by his uncle who was giving him a bath. He slapped you and told you you're not man enough to bear a little pain. You grew up shrinking inside, dreading going into the men's washroom anywhere for fear of being abused.

My voice are the helpless people on the streets of lagos, the ones who sleep by the road side, the ones who do not know where the next meal will come from, the ones with throats so dry they could barely beg.

The Wardrobe of Lonely

How do you pick what to wear the next day?

Do you pick an outfit that shows your lonely. The sadness you attempt to carefully tuck away in the morning, the sadness you cover with the concealer, trace with your eyeliner, you’ve tried to hide it, haven’t you? It still escapes, pouring through your forced smile and awkward conversations with strange men that will never call you home. They listen well enough to know when you’re horny, they call you beautiful. If they stay silent, if they listen long enough they will hear your desperation, smell it off you, strong as shisha from a magic hookah. It’s a good thing they don’t.

Do you pick an outfit that is a shameless plea for attention, because this is what you’ve been your whole life. You can’t remember a day you got up for you, it’s for these strange men, the rows of skirts small enough to show off your tight ass. The lip lick from the man in accounting, Dare from TI would linger when he passes you by the dispenser. This is all you, the desperate plea in a tight dress.

Do you pick the opposite, an outfit that hides all your woman. That hides the curves, covers up the contours, tells the truth, that you can’t ever remember being kissed like you mattered. That you’ve gone 25 years without this elusive thing called love. That you’ve been searching your whole life for a place you can be vulnerable. 

Do you pick an outfit that shows how haggard and unkempt you are. That you are a place of ruin and everything you touch decays? That this isn’t just metaphors. Its Midas touch but the opposite, that you haven’t been alone from lack of trying. That men have walked in and found your insides an abandoned house, just too much effort is required and not worth the investment. That you will always be alone.

9. April. 2016.

You like the type of love that is not easy.
The one where you feel like the other woman after 23 years of marriage, his ring on your finger and the 5 children you gave him. The other 5 children he had before you, the ones who never forget to make you feel like filth,  like a home breaker, that make you live in fear. Because somehow they are always coming for you, the one that broke their home. Somehow their mother didn't tell them how she was long gone before you came. And now? After 23 years he still doesn't feel like yours and home doesn't feel like home, it becomes just a place you go to sleep. You need assurance, the house in your name, your signature as the other signatory to his accounts, your children in his will.

You like the type of love that is not easy.
The one where you are someone's secret.  Something to be hidden; in his car, bent to him as if in worship, gagging yourself with his penis trying not to vomit your feelings and your shame or walking into a hotel separately to the same room. There is no conversation;  you don't talk about his exotic girlfriend with skin like milk, you don't ask him why she is not enough, you don't ask him what he is doing with you, you don't talk about his likes or dislikes, you don't ask him how his day was, you don't tell him how you feel a little less woman and more like a call girl when you get his texts, "Where are you?", "Send me a video", "I want to see what panties you have on". You don't tell him how spend a little too long trying to get the best angle of your body, to look anything close to his girlfriend. And all he says after is "Nice"."Damn"."More".

You like the type of love that is not easy.
The one where you hide your scars with clothes, makeup and lies. You stopped exposing your arms with the dark red marks all around them from the cuts and bruises he inflicted. You started using concealer and foundation to hide the black eye and the map of his fingers when they slapped your face. You told stories about how you fell on the stairs, slipped in the bathroom and ran into the cupboard when your lights went off. You listen to him tell you over and over again that he will get help. You look at his desperate eyes and your legs become paralysed so you cannot leave. You love him instead because it is all you know.

You like the type of love that is not easy.
The one that leaves sawdust in your mouth when your husband introduces you to the 21 year old girl with fake lashes and red claws he is in love with and is going to marry. After you quit your job because he thinks you are ridiculous for wanting to work. After having two of his kids who always cried like bleating goats in the dead of the night robbing you of sleep. After becoming this fat unattractive thing because all you did was stay home to cook food you ended up eating alone. The love that destroys you from your soul, the one that reminds you of your wretchedness, the one you warn your daughter of; that sometimes the worst things come in the name of love.

4. April. 2016.

The past is always heavy with us, could have beens, had beens, sometimes just memory with the bias of remembrance. Memories casted in a different light, given deeper implications. Remembering the past like an ecstatic director bringing his favourite monochromatic piece to colour. Everything is brighter, louder, attractive. There are reminders everywhere, following you, haunting you.
You now listen to Cold play's Magic and you think about him, the weather that night, how his eyes lingered, his musky breath. You remember feeling liquid from his touch, legs turned to water when his lips met yours. The lyrics and the electrifying voice of Chris Martin the only battle to the silence, how you felt transported, unable to think. How you gave yourself to someone for the first time. Now you listen to Magic and remember the blinding pain when he left some months after for a lightskinned girl with a squeaky voice and the most annoying laughter.

For some it's a movie. "Mr. Bones". You remember how you and your three siblings sat on the floor too close to the television screen, laughing at the almost naked man with no idea of how things will be so different later that night. The youngest cried against your dress and you hid his face so he did not see the strangers hit your mom, again and again in the stomach. Your dad was tied up to the chair with a swollen mouth helpless. Your other two siblings were hiding in an unknown location in the house, praying not to be discovered.

Sometimes its a date. 2nd of April 2013 in the hospital that smelt of death. He had been in a coma for 2 months. Unresponsive. You had been by his bedside all that while, talking to him about everything and nothing. Sometimes just pleading with him to wake up. Telling him you forgive him, begging him to forgive you for being unreasonable, for not listening to his pleas. 2nd of April 2013 was the day his parents gave up and signed to take him off life support. You had been brave, fighting the doctors and nurses anyone who tried to come close to him to take the tube away. It's 2nd April 2018 and you're in your bed crying yourself away like you just lost him.

Sometimes it's a place that becomes a bag full of memories. The university, it had been six years since you left but you remember everything, even now, driving through the school to pick up your younger brother for the holidays. You remember the hard days, the less difficult ones, the archaic set of rules, the secrets, the insecurities, friends that were not really friends, the many empty relationships, and her. Her laughter that was everything, holding hands to sleep, staring a little too long without caring how awkward it would be if someone noticed the way you looked at her longingly. It wasn't just a friendship, it was more.