Not sunflowers, not roses,but rocks in patterned sand grow here. And bloom."- Robert Hayden, Approximations.
Black was your favorite color,the color of your soul; thick,heavy,gloomy pitch-black. It reminded you of how people like you were too relative with the devil, you joked. “With his dark flowing robe,arrowhead tail and a long silver pitchfork.” It reminded you of how close you were to hell,an eternal damnation for people like you. Like me. And it made me fear for us the more,all the Church homilies about a second coming of a bridegroom with his angelic kinsmen to rapture all those whom he deemed spotless enough to join his train. Male and female.
I remember you telling the young preacher with so much enthusiasm, who had boarded the same kekenapep with us to the market and kept calling us his 'Sisters in the Lord’, that this coming bridegroom was Bi. That a bridegroom whom had interests in both male and female was bi; that any bridegroom, after the wedding ceremony, is expected to consummate his marriage to whomever it was he was married to. And I remember him staring with utter confusion, fighting for words to buttress his unsolicited sermon about how “giving your life to Christ is the best thing you can do while alive", tilting his gaze from your face to mine. His bulgy eyeballs and partly covered mouth left him looking like a mouse.
I remember us throwing our heads backward, laughing hysterically and him bobbing his head in despair. Perhaps, he might have been thinking, "another lost souls. Lord have mercy!"
I remember the driver telling him he could go when he alighted, that his fare had been paid by us, and how he thanked us "but no thanks", demanding we took our money back, that he didn’t want to accept any offer of benevolence, albeit pity, from unclean Daughters of Eve, that his God would provide all his needs according to His riches in glory. I remember how you flared up as the words "Daughters of Eve" tumbled from his mouth, remember you cussing him and his entire generation, calling him a miserable dickhead, turning to me to ask if I could imagine such lewd stupidity, bragging about how you bet he didn’t have enough money to feed his miserable self dinner. Talking about how religion had so brainwashed him, left him with dead brain cells as bleached as his faded blue shirt. I remember holding you, stifling my laughter, telling you to put a rein on your aggression.
This is not how I chose to remember you. But it is the memory of your last good laugh. There are many flowery memories of us together that I want to let go of. But things stay with me far too long than one can imagine. I have never imagined losing someone could be this traumatic. And very painful. With each day that breaks,I blame myself for the tragedy that occurred. I relive those fleeting moments and loathe myself for being unable to have done something, at least. Losing you has left a vacuum in me,one that doesn't heal too fast,but once it clots on the outside,I reopen them because living in a world without you,without your heartwarming laughter is a torture I cannot wait for it to end.
Black was the color of the gown you bought,hoping to wear it to Zélie's birthday party. You always talked about how your first words and hers started and ended the same,about how she had this kind of possession over you that made you feel infinite, yes,I remember that was the word you used. Infinite. And I rolled my eyes,and wondered how someone could make another person feel infinite, and questioning in my mind if I'd ever made you feel same way. I didn't tell you I was jealous at the prospect of you and Zélie being together, but I always wanted for you to be happy,so I let you follow the one you said your entirety burned for. The night you came home to my arms crying and blubbering about how Zélie was an asshole and a cheap betrayer, I didn't tell you how happy I was,that was why I never bothered asking what had happened between you both,and you never bothered talking about it. So you moved on like nothing had happened.
I went job hunting today,again. While walking the streets,clutching to the brown manila envelope containing my documents, I thought about how you would have refused me from wanting to work,how you’d have asked me to not stress myself, working your ass out,telling me that you had everything under control. On my way home after a long futile search, I bought The Vanguard, scouring through each leaf and circling job advertisements like you used to, hoping to find the will to send out applications in the morning. I sincerely do not want to work,but Yousuf says I need something to take my mind off you. A distraction, sort of.
Asides that, the rents are due, we’re running out of groceries, and these things won’t do themselves. They require capital, so I am willing to work, if I find any, and try to stop myself from thinking about you. But there is no possible way I can do that — forgetting you, when thoughts of you cloud my waking breath, and each morning, I gag trying to picture your terrified soul struggling to untether itself from the trap wires that sliced your throat, and your feet dangling in the air like a skater.
There is no way I can bring myself to stop thinking about you when everything around this place bears a marking of your leaving. From the beddings to the kitchen table to the sink. The duvet still smells of your cologne; I have refused to wash it, and at nights I cling to it while lying naked on the bed and watch my phone screen with naked bodies touching themselves in a manner I’d never let anyone, but you, touch me.
Two evenings ago, Nkasi, Madame B’s Igbo house help, offered to come prepare efo riro for me because she’s noticed I haven’t had good food to eat since your funeral, and that I was growing wan, wrinkled and ugly. I chuckled when she told me this and wondered where she ever got the idea that I haven’t had anything good to eat since you left. I wanted to dismiss her, but she was right. I no longer bothered cooking efo riro,because what is efo riro without you in the kitchen with me, slicing onions, chopping vegetables and singing Nina Simone. Though your voice sounded somehow horrible and shifted keys, but I never told you this because it was spice to the food, and the idea of an us together was worth more than a squeaky voice.
I invited her over, hoping she’d be a good distraction to quit thinking of you. When she knocked on the front door later in the night, I saw her smiling and she didn’t look anything like you but I let her in and showed her to the kitchen. I leaned onto the table and watched silently as she cooked and for the first time in many years of her living in this compound, I noticed her slender waist. I remembered how you’d told me she looked pretty, and that you liked how respectful she was. So I walked closer, and rounded both hands on her waist. She was startled when I asked her if she would mind getting naked for me and having me finger her cunt. I felt her heart racing as she screamed "Holy ghost fire!" freed herself from my grasp and said that I was growing insane then fled. I feared she might go about rambling about how I tried to take advantage of her to her Madame B. or other persons in the neighborhood, but she knew to remain silent.
She now avoids my presence from metres away, like shit. But other times when it is inevitable that our paths have to cross, she greets me with a quick glance in the face. No more stopping by the front door to ask if I’d had anything oily to eat.
On Sunday after the night we became enslaved to our desires, I went for confession. I knew you would have called me hysterical or said it was just a silly mistake that wouldn’t ever repeat itself, that was why I couldn’t let you know. But I didn’t confess all, because I felt that our sin was a kind too grave, too heavy for even the priest to hear. I didn’t tell him some part of my insides enjoyed it and couldn’t wait for subsequent episodes. I didn’t tell him I was the one who first brushed away flowing tears from your face and held your face in my hands for longer than should, staring into those hazelnut eyes with black thickets for brows. I didn’t tell him I was the one who first caressed your lips with a finger and gently placed mine on them, inhaling, sucking away the dried red gloss, savoring the scent and letting my tongue run marathons in your mouth as you loosened. I didn’t tell him I was the one who first fondled your breasts through the silk fabric, fighting the clothings to free fresh mounds of perky flesh that bloomed like oranges on your chest. I didn’t tell him all this because I felt they were too much lascivious details so I just told him I committed a sin of fornication. But not with whom I’d done it with. That was one of the best nights of my life, even though I feared that my finger would singe your hair as they traced along your scalp. And we both feared our hands — yours around my waist and mine holding fast to your cleavages — would burn from the spite of a holy ghost neither of us was sure existed. And as we lay on the bed, worn out with breaths coming in rapid hushed bloats, my body felt condemned and unholy. And guilt pricked my chest, but you had laid there quiet. Then slept off.
This is how I remember death — an unanswered prayer.
When I found out mommy had cancer, I went to the Church to pray. Sr.Margaret-Mary taught us that prayer answered all things. But she lied. Money does. I prayed decade after decade of the rosary, spent hours at the hospital’s chapel praying for mommy, praying to God that he performs a miracle, prayed that he sent help, prayed that he brings daddy home, prayed for many things, but he seemed to be too busy attending to some other important needs of very important persons that he let mommy die. Day after day, we watched her drift away from mortality, because we didn’t have enough money to fly her abroad. We watched her body, which was made of her, which was made of cancer, shrivel and wither away at the roots like flowers. One day she was there, watching over her girls grow, hoping, drawing out futures of us with good, rich husbands and beautiful kids. The next, she was on that bed, lying lifeless. Pale, shrunken, withered, dead. Gone. I stopped wearing the rosary after she died. It was a gift from her. You never wore yours because you never saw a need to. And sometimes, I wished I had half the courage you had. Defiant, yet still loved by your overly religious mother.
When Fr.Kodilim took you, 12 and I, 15 in, he said his house would be our new home and God our father. It made me wonder if God waited till people became orphaned for him to assume fatherhood roles in their lives. When he told us to not worry too much over mommy’s death, that God knew best, you asked him if mommy’s dying was the best thing God could think of — leaving young children like us orphans. He hushed you, said, God’s ways aren’t man’s ways.
It was you who said perhaps, to God we were just a good movie with a pinch of salt, he watched us from heaven with his angels over a box of popcorn. And it startled me, and Fr.Kodilim asked you to not speak of such blasphemies against God ever again. And even though you did not speak of it, your eyes bore silent words of your deep resentment for him. And you hated Fr.Kodilim’s place.
It was after your death that I realized the sheer truth behind your analogies and I thought perhaps, you had a valid reason to bear resentment towards God.
The night we ran away from the Church four years later, into the streets, with an uncertainty of what unbridled destiny fate had in store for us, I was determined to protect us. To protect you. When I took washing and babysitting shifts, it was to make money to fend for us. Enough to send you to school. And you never disappointed. When you brought home the prize that later changed our lives, I wanted to think God had a hand in it. I wanted to think maybe it was his own way of asking us to give him a chance in our lives again. I wanted to believe. And I did. But not wholly, rather in secret.
I did love you. More than a friend. More than a sister should be loved. I loved you more than life itself. And I still do.
I always admired the constellation drawn in blue ink around your neck that led to something that looked like a rock with fine patterns on them. And I thought, perhaps I could get a tatoo, too. While I washed your body for the final time, I loathed that tatoo. It no longer appeared alive like it used to. It was faded. And as I washed in between your thighs, I thought about our last good time that wasn’t really a last good time together. A Friday night, after we fucked on the balcony, watching the starry sky. It was the night you asked me what it was I feared most while cradling a cup of coffee. And when I said I didn’t know, you told me you feared dying most. And I told you death was inevitable, that you shouldn’t let your fears take hold of you. I was afraid, but I couldn’t let you see my fear because I was meant to make you feel safe. Though I, too, feared dying. It was the night you told me you were dying, and there was nothing no one could do about it. It was the night we both cried and fell asleep consoling each other.
It was after your dying that I discovered what ALS was. You didn’t deserve such misery. And I hate myself for not staying back to watch over you. And I wanted to hate you for being too cruel by dying. We could have found a way out even though there was no way out. We could have waited, you could have waited a bit longer to know if God was willing to answer my long overdue prayers this time. I was willing to try again so I went to Church to pray, again. To ask God to heal you, to ask him to forgive me for having waited till another tragedy to return. To ask him to save you. But he could have saved you, still.
When you said that the weight losing control of your own body heaved upon you was unbearable, I coaxed you into believing it was going to stop even though we knew I could have been lying. When you said you wanted freedom, I could have imagined you meant death. But how can you find freedom in what you feared most? I do hope you found your freedom.
Tonight, I am slouched on the sofa, sipping vodka as I write this. I cannot assure you that you’ll forever live in my heart, because I, too, will not be able to live forever. Because the confinement in my heart will be space too small to house your entirety. Because I want to set you free so you can bloom in the afterlife, if there really is a thing like an afterlife. Because I want to move on, to be able to fly again, and the memories of you carry too much weight.
