Odogwu is not mine, I think

 

Dear Nnanna,

Good morning. Kedu?

It is not often that I write because the life of a newlywed is quite the project. Unfortunately, the honey moon was cut quite short because Odogwu said he spent so much at our Igba-Nkwu, and his shop could not be closed for more than a few days. So we although we had flown to Abuja in business class on our wedding night, we returned only a few days later to Port Harcourt with the Ekenedilichukwu Mass Transit.

We are now settling in, I think. But I am not quite settled.

Come, let me give you gist. 

As if it was not bad enough that Odogwu made me wait for the seven months of his Johannesburg programme, taunting me every night with calls. And you know how his calls can be. His smooth, deep, chocolate infused, hormone spiking, heaven descending voice. Not to mention how intense they got when they were having winter. How he used to call me ‘choko-laytum’, as his voice guided me to slide myself inside of me. How naughty he was with his ‘threats’. If there was one thing I was looking forward to this whole year it was his coming back.

And then he finally did. We met physically for the first time at the Cinema. I remember how the hair on my neck rose when his thick fingers chose the couples seat at the last row of the viewing room. I can’t recall the film because I was floating with desire for him the whole night. At the couples seat he layed his hand between my thighs, just above my knee. It was heaven. It sent volts to the place between skull cap and lace-frontal.  The popcorn in my mouth got hotter and hotter. I did not want to rush him or make him think I was cheap. I wanted him, so I had to be a lady. I knew he wanted me too. So it was only a matter of time.

His kisses…., Nnannaaaaa. His kisses where quite the starter. He took his time. It felt like his tongue had well-oiled joints in them. So I waited and waited. 

But then he proposed before we could … And then everyone took their spot in our bedroom.

We got registered for couples counselling in the church. The women’s meeting leader instructed me to ‘keep myself’ till my wedding night.  And you know mum went on and on about pre-marital sex and pregnancy. 

Odogwu’s house was not even safe anymore. His mum moved in. Bless Mama Odogwu’s heart, he makes the best moi-moi. But the way she kept kept hovering around like a helicopter whenever I visited. Apparently, it was revealed to her pastor that if did not have premarital sex our first pregnancy would be twins. As such all the doors in the house should be kept open. And even when I slept over, it was with her. 

I was coming to the end of the my National Youth Service, and now beginning to look for jobs. Odogwu was still trying to stabilize himself. So the tension was quite high for us as individuals. So many times, I just wanted to uber to his place at 1am and just cry crawl into his arms and cry and cry. But that same 1am will be when mum will be praying so loud in the living room about about my wedding. 

As our wedding approached, Odogwu’s calls got less frequent. The day the negotiations happened. He did not seem like himself. He was not the Odogwu that I fell in love with. You remember that time you took him to your room so that it seems like I mistakenly bumped into him? The man had not been sleeping. Business was not so great, and the wedding was draining him. He just held me and sobbed and sobbed. 

‘I’m trying’ he said. ‘I’m trying’.

When we checked into our hotel room on our wedding night. I dashed into the bathroom to prepare for my man. Pastors, mothers and female church leaders miles away. When I got out in that shimmering lilac number, Odogwu was crouched by the desk on his laptop. 

‘Nkem’ he said, without looking back. ‘I’ll be only a few minutes neh,’

He looked at my reflection in the mirror above him. Teasingly wagged his tongue at me. Winked.

‘You better come ravage this feast this minute’ I thought. 

‘Take your time babes’, I said, as I hugged him lightly from behind.

Then I gently crawled into be, contorting my body into all sorts of not so subtle postures  to nail not so subtle ideas into his head. I fell asleep to the beauty of his broad shoulders and perfectly oblong neatly shaved head. 

‘This is mine’. I thought. ‘This is all mine’.

A few hours later, I woke up to the feeling of being choked. Odogwu’s weight was crushing me. 

‘Choko-laytum’ he whispered as he huffed and puffed rapidly. 

‘Odogwu can we just…’ As I tried to relieve myself a bit.

‘Shut up!’ he said firmly. ‘Pinning me to the bed’

‘This is mine. You’re mine’. He tore further in. He went midly firm to razor sharp and then midly firm. He was too cold, too wet, too little.

He wiggled and bounced, and groaned. His eyes shut, his body pouring with sweat. Some beast had possessed the man that I fell in love with. 

‘All mine’ he said ‘all mine‘. 

To say that I was badly bruised, Nnanna, would not be sufficient. 

In the days that followed he carried on like nothing had happened except that at first he could not look me in the eyes and always seemed to be few steps ahead.

I was dazed for so long. Unsure whether I had dreamt this or it really happened. 

The night we returned to Port Harcourt, he gave me a proper tour of his place. He showed me where everything was at his place. From the emergency cash, to his pistol to where he kept his spare match box. He also cooked for me. 

Just after we prayed for dinner, he whispered, ‘I’m sorry. I’m very sorry’, just before he leaned in to kiss me.

It has been a few weeks of married life. A few weeks since that night. Although my bruises are healed, he has not touched me again. 

We talk and we laugh. And things are great. But it seems like when things get too great, he disappears into his work.

Mum says, marriage is like a Christmas parcel. You never know what you get or the extent of it. But it is the graceful thing to smile and be thankful as you unwrap and as you check.

While I am checking still. I have discovered a hair salon not so far from our home. There is a stylist, Oluchi whose hair washing and scalp massage skills are toe-curlingly good. There is something she does that I call the butterfly stroke. It is when all her ten fingers drive towards each other on the back of my head, her firmness ploughing through softness of my scalp and neck. There was this time, I was alone with her in the shop and her wet thumbs extended to my lower-back. It felt so good. I almost cried. 

At the end of my washing and setting that night, she leaned in, her chin almost touching my shoulder, I could feel the warmth of her face. 

‘You’re such a gorgeous woman.’

She set me aflame. And for the first time in months, I did not belong to Odogwu.

Nnanna. You need to come home, fast. I was ever clueless about anything, it is now.

Nwannegi nwanyi,

Chikodinaka

Hatfield 2021

South Africa can be a beautiful place if it puts its mind to it. And her people can be incredibly beautiful when they let you in. If you are as starry eyed as me and have lived here long enough, you must have loved across the spectrum and arrived at the conclusion that there is no one South Africanness. Whether or not you spend your Saturday at a chisanyama or a fancy art gallery will depend on whether or not you are seeing Tshepo or Christof. The weddings and dances here are also quite alot to look at. The Makotis and their their sisters or the men with the wide hips and narrow shoulders. Then there is the gumboot dance that the university choir choreographed that still has me in awe. And the way Lacantina, the gay club down town Pretoria, can come alive and give you a rebirth every other Friday. In 2021, I returned to Hatfield, Pretoria from Aleto, Nigeria. It was going to fresh start, a blank page. Being back home during the pandemic lockdown was quite the blessing. Amidst all that went down in 2020, I was only to thankful to be in a place where I could die with a smile on my face, home. However, coming back to Pretoria was also a blessing in its own right. I was in the class of Nigerians that could come and go as they please, provided, there was enough to purchase a return ticket. There was not always a lot, but when I could I would seize opportunity to see my family again. This was especially the case when only late in 2019, there had been an upsurge in xenophobic sentiments in South Africa. 2021, was a quiet because most of the systems were still yet to recover from the shock of covid. Hatfield, which would ordinarily be a festival of student discotheques was became a ghost town too early on most days. And the load shedding/power outage became a more of real thing. Laying by yourself in a dark room in a ghost town can make ones mind run a mile a second. In these seconds I wondered

10 years since Oge: a kind unforgiveness and knowing how to love you right

Dear Oge, Kedu? I imagine that the sound of me writing you, clit-clating away at my keyboard at midnight with nothing on my mind but you is something that we have both missed. I have missed it terribly too and that is one of the reasons that I have not been able to write. I think something is broken: I'm not able to think of just you. It is a decade since that wet day in May when Ada called me during my law school study session in Bwari and began with 'Are you sitting?' The day I that I realised that certain parts of one's body can ache and that the body can also cook itself in grief. The day that I learned that we lost you. I would later learn that through seredipitous swing you lured my ex-girlfriend down to your funeral. She had not known that her Port Harcourt bound bus was actually headed straight to the venue where you would be laid to rest, while I was trapped in Bwari, too broke and too disconnected to know where anyone was, and to uncertain if my openly griefing for you is something that should be done, given that ... In the decade since I lost you, I have become everything that I dreamt I would be and more. I have also taken on new dreams because I have learned that dreaming is one way to feel safe and rooted when everything else loses its simplicity. In this decade, I've also bid farewell to quite a number of people. Don't worry, its not that bad. Only a few of them are dead. The rest just are not here any more. But I have also learned that a quieter life can be richer than a tactless festival. In the decade that I lost you, I have missed you terrribly. To an extent I have unconsciously sought a piece of you in everybody that I have been with. And when it was not glaringly obvious, I insisted on seeing if it be conjured. I have not always been fortunate. But when I get lucky I find it most thrilling, most safe. And that part of you is what I am now learning was yourtendency to hold a grudge, demonstrate it and yet be there. A sort of kind unforgiveness. A kindness in which your demonstrating your anger was not so much a retribution, but a rather articulate 'you are hurting me'. Looking back now I realise that your ability to communicate in the ways that you did was something that was out-of-this-world about you. No to romanticise you, but you did do this quite often, and it would be followed by a gap for a response, a gap in which you would expect some response. And this gap would usually be your eyes paying attention. But then this was my experience of you. And I thought and still think it was perfect. But you are not the world, and you are not everyone else that I have hoped to share this with. In a world of minimised face-to-face interaction, the bridge of tact that communication was is wilting. And people are saying alot and communicating little. And worsestill, because we delude ourselves into thinking that we are being heard, our retribution for what comes across of being ignored becomes pure acid. And this goes on to create a vicious circle of people falsely brokering how they are in the world. We are yet to find each other again and our communication seems like we are slapping each other around in the darkness. Of course someone is going to get hurt. When it comes to building or fostering intimate communities, we are neither speaking nor listening right, and there is no universal model for how that should be the cosmpolitan, globalised communities that has emerged postcovid. Worestill, it seems that there because we have grown thinner tolerance levels because we expect that people should just know. But people don't know. I don't know either. And it is fucked up. But that's okay. Looking back to when you were next to me, I realise that it was not often that I heard you, but that 'have you heard' gap, is something that I will always cherish. Your kind unforgiveness. It is a difficult space to be in, especially when anger makes you imagine the worst of people while becoming the worst of oneself. I think of you, and I think of the other times and other people that I could have shared this with, alot. It is still something that I need to embrace. It is hard to take one's unforgiveness and be kind about it. It is tough. But I want to be that person who does stuff like that. I hope this is okay. Yours, Nnanna

Excerpt from 'Abali'

I want to fall madly in love with soccer. I want to know the chest beat that the last few minutes bring. I want to be genuinely excited about the start of a game because of the game. And not because there is chance that Ali may just rock my world if he wins. You see, Ali is really a gentleman. Oh, he is the gentlest of them all. But if Chelsea wins a March I have learned to stay out of the way of his madness. First he pulls the top of his shirt over his afro and gives the air a good fuck and fisting. And then the magic happens for me. He brings me a frosty glass of gin and tonic. Rides me to a pop. And then passes the night besides Raluchi's cot with his bottles and wipes on stand by. But if Chelsea loses, he drives out briefly for a smoke, returns home in a few minutes and goes straight to bed. And no matter how much Raluchi squeals at night, this oga is not moving. Of course all this fizzles off before the sun comes up and he is back to being the chatty and overly perceptive Ali who ... At the Berger park in Lagos, although we were tribes and world's apart, we connected over a knowing smile about sex, it's naughtiness, it's being a taboo. In that brief moment everything between us thinned.

Can we see the world and not get lost?

Its February 2020, I am at the OR Tambo airport and have just been charged R180 for a plastic wrap service by some black South African men. I don't have enough rands on me as I am on my way out. I have also never been asked to pay for a plastic wrap service. But you see, my bags have already been wrapped becau

se I let them, because I assume that it is free. I make an appeal for a lesser man and they refuse. The flip out their scissors and destroy the tight plastic wrap. And when they are done they move to wrap the suitcases of the person next on the queue. I am taken aback by this, but because nothing can get in the way of my craving for home, I brush it off and check in my luggage. I have a 4hour or so layover in Addis Ababa and everyone has become a surgeon. They are all wearing masks. I joke to my friend that this must be Corona fashion week. Only that Corona is not a joke and people are really scared. The air hostesses wear face masks and gloves through out the flight and their mascara defined eyes look dead and cold. I catch one examining a sandwich closely and call on a few more and they have a short meeting to deliberate on that particular sandwich. Then they disperse. I already ate the sandwich handed over to me, so now a lot is running through my mind. Was the entire batch bad. Or had the bun caught Corona virus? I am in Abuja Nigeria and some airport ground staff question my Nigerianness. I'm too tired and recurrently explain that I am a student and that I home to see my family. I am way over the luggage weight limit and I don't have the naira to pay for the weight above 20kg. AN angel points me in the direction to get ab affordable plastic bag to split the weight and reduce cost. After checking in someone comes to get my bags to be screened. I offer to assist him with moving my bags but he calmly insists that I let him do his job. My bags are checked and he wishes me a safe flight. People give me directions. People are kind and respectful and carrying on with life. Nigeria feels different. South Africa feels different too. In Nigeria we are quite familiar with operating with or without electricity. In South Africa, without electricity time stops and shops close. For a few minutes I'm madly in love with my Nigeria and quite pitying of South Africa. For a few years now my life has increasingly moved to SA. And the more I move away from home, the more I feel lost to my roots. Nigeria is no paradise. On several levels 'the struggle is real'. It gets very warm and then very dusty. Things can get terribly expensive and lives can change in a flash. But then I form part of the flock of young Nigerians who have left home to pursue a :better' life. The older and farther away I get, the less often I visit, the more lost I feel. The more I feel that a better life is sought at high a cost. In South Africa, I am often asked how lucky I feel that I am in a country where sexual and gender minorities enjoy constitutional protection. I should feel lucky shouldn't I? I had felt lucky for a year or so. It was a nice liberating rush. But then it takes more legal protection to guarantee luck, and a good quality of life, a feel of trust and community. Even with the legal protection that gay men enjoy here, I often feel very lost and alone. And that my thirst to see the world could be self-destructive.

Auntim Jane...She always begins with ‘hmmm, look at you.’

You take. You take. You take from yourself till there is nothing left to listen to when you retire to your bed at night. You give yourself too little time to sleep or feel or be because when you were little you conjured the voice of a Nigerian aunty in your head. I called mine Auntim Jane. Auntim Jane always compares me with everyone that passes by. I go to bed in the evening and she reminds me that my mates are still at work trying to make ends meet. I’m at a relative’s wedding, Autim Jane reminds that the groom was my classmate and that the bride calls me uncle. You’d think she would stop there. She is right there next to me on my birthday, blowing cold breeze in my ear and telling me how all my mates are becoming either husbands, fathers or billionaires. Why should I get out out of bed, it is not like anything that I do will amount to anything, plus it is a Saturday and I’m exhausted from working late and trying to catch the last train back to Johannesburg? But no, Auntim Jane will quote ‘a little sleep, a little slumber and poverty comes knocking’. Auntim Jane likes the sound of her voice. I like the sound of her voice too. She always begins with ‘hmmm, look at you.’ Auntim Jane is probably Igbo, but she has that common Nigerian fusion of British and American accent infused with Igbo words. I conjured her smell too. She smells like freshly ironed damask with the musk still trying to settle in. She also smells like peppered chicken from a Nigerian wedding. She does not touch me. It is not in her nature to, but she makes sure she makes eye contact, while she speaks of how fortunate and brilliant everyone is and how more stupid I am becoming. The day I was called to bar, she was there in my room with her red gele. ‘Is it not your mates that had first class. Do they have two heads?’. The day I got my masters degree, she was in the stall next to mine in the rest room eavesdropping as I cried my eyeballs out because my parents were not there with me. She told me, ‘hurry up, they about to start’. After every break up, she is right there in my room handing me tissues as she outlines everything that I did wrong in the relationship, while simultaneously helping me select potential hookups from apps. She is very gifted, she knows how to pick them. Auntim Jane likes to fill the room with her voice. She likes to fill my head with her echo. She tells me to be home early just because. And when I’m home, she knits her thickness around me. She tells me to study more. Auntim Jane is drawn to books, she thinks that there is always something interesting in them, or that someone new has figured an interesting way to say something old. She is not always right, but by the time I realise it, I have wasted another few months not living.

Photo sourced from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etrpj4I8uoA

I want it to be okay to be you (lost draft from 2018)

Dear Omomi,

It's a Sunday evening and the darkness weaves through hillcrest like the tracks of a dense wig. From my window I can see the yellow that marks the black road in the TUKS res in tracks of parallel yellow and white that underlines some distance away. I am with my thoughts, still and uncertain. I am thinking and wishing very wildely about you.

Things are not exactly great at the moment. But things could be a lot worse too. I feel nothing. Absolutely nothing.