Well, to pour out, I think,

Spilling calmly and coolly from the mind and fingers,

Not necessarily satisfied but just

Enough to

Let you have some respite a short while.

I think human beings are expressive creatures like all animals and all living things.

Holding things in is genuinely a health hazard for us, that's how bad it is.

But spilling is difficult, especially because

Emotions aren't something you can make another person feel,

Nor are experiences.

I often marvel at the fact that my twin and I

Were born around the same time and have lived together for always, yet

Like and dislike and give a damn about

Such different things.

Like all creatives, poets want to spill out.

Like all nature, things have to be let go of at some point.

Cycles and movement and flow and all that.

The natural go of things.

So some people paint and some sing and some dance and most do all of these in their different ways,

And poetry then is pretty stories and journal entries

That are happy-go-lucky or swirly painful suffocating

That help us breathe a little easier for a

Little while sometimes.

Distractions for reader and writer alike.

A place to release a small piece of your small, homey, self-ful infinity.

They aren't always pretty but we try to make them so,

Even without fully thinking about it.

I used to think being a poet was all about rhyme and stanza and perfection

And then I read some Bukowski and some

Kaur

And I read enough magic to realise

It's just a cup that runneth on over

In split-up lines and parts

Like all other writing.

Nothing special and

Everything that is magical

All at once.

I like that about people.

Everything we create is more masterwork from the hands because

It comes from somewhere and someone

With a heart and a maybe soul?

I like that we create things.

That we build these giant rectangular-ish things to nest in

And other rectangles to sleep in

And often write onto or type into more rectangles for some momentary

Relief.

And I like that no matter how good or bad the things I send out into the world might be,

It is mine.

And it always will be mine.

And no matter how similar it is to anyone's, nobody can ever take that away from me.

My mind is my mind,

My poetry is my poetry,

My madness is my madness.

People may bear witness for a moment, be moved, be bored

But I'm not here for them.

I do not write for them.

I never truly have.

The pen can only mean something to the being who creates with it.

My phone and I have many more

Little scratchings on the wall to go.

And many more happy-go-lucky, swirly painful suffocating experiences,

Drifting in and through and away,

To fuel them.

On my phone is photographic proof my picture-prone sister

On my phone is photographic poof my picture-taking-prone sisterOn my phone is photographic poof my picture-taking-prone sister

Wanted for our father's birthday cake while he was away on business.

It's weird how no one wants to write their ages on their cakes.

I wonder when it happens.

When they stop celebrating with the giant numbers printed out or in wax form

"10s" and "1s" and the lot.

When does one go from wanting it known to feeling like it creeps on you?

My father seems so well put together sometimes

In his little human skin suit that it's

Only the cracks, at times

That remind me he is human.

He is critical.

He is a leader or whatever.

He is husband and father, hardworking son to some no longer alive people and every

Thing he does,

He does with the desire to be the best.

Or as good as he can.

He knows so much about

Politics and

Law and

Our culture.

He expects everyone to act at least a little like him

But don't we all?

I don't tend to see him fall apart.

In the angry way, of course but never the sad way.

Man or not, he doesn't feel comfortable doing so.

He'd rather lock himself in his room with bread and water by his side when he feels extra upset,

Some little grievance

Or

Take it out on someone else.

The man isn't perfect.

And I don't think I fully realised

Till recently enough that his own version of perfect,

The one he always tries to make us follow

Is flawed.

And that he really is trying his best to adjust it...

Slowly, though.

The hurt he's done and will do still remains but

Slowly.

Slowly.

The past is hard to think about.

I drank from the River Lethe, yet the few sticklers left in my empty head are the worst ones

And he's aced some villain roles, I suppose.

But he's so... Old now?

He's survived so much?

Gone through so much psychological shit he likely won't ever see as "that bad" or

Tell me.

Like me, he cares sort of a lot about how people view him.

Not enough that it utterly swallows up his life

But enough to make too many choices based on the eyes...

Those eyes.

I wonder if life gets better or worse as you get older?

I'm about his age divided by three so maybe I'm not one to talk

And he will probably always see me as a small child with very little to say

But I think it's a mix of both.

It will always be a mix of both.

And that sort of terrifies me.

I spent my entire childhood searching for happiness,

Safety

And the perfect formula for the perfect little girl.

Throwing that all away takes time.

Learning to rock with the boat as wave becomes ocean and ocean becomes wave again is

Kind of a lot.

But here we both are.

Hardly similar.

Ebbing, flowing, clashing, isolating.

Three times and three divided each other's ages.

Still alive.

It's not about the way that certain someone makes you feel.

It's not about that bully from the past.

It's not about the eyes...

Those eyes.

And it never was.

Why do you put in so much effort, child,

When you were always going to be here?

Always meant to exist?

Why do you torture yourself so much as if it is by your hand that humans are such convoluted complexities of kind and cruel, as if it's

By your hand that it's all burning down day by day?

Why the self-cruelty?

Dry your eyes.

There is no certainty to any of it for any of us.

Just a lot of dancing around, whether for fun or to pretend it is so and

I say we make it interesting when we can.

So let it go.

And fall away.

The world spins on whether we dance or not.

Don't make yourself a puppet for them.

Don't bind yourself to judgement and insults and shame and hatred.

Don't waste your days on the strings of faceless, heartless, soulless things who don't care for the you you know you are.

Give the dance a pause.

Drop the hammer, put down the briefcase

And pick up some scissors, stranger.

It's not over till it's over.

So while you're here,

Shred that twine entangling your bones to pieces bit by bit and

Spin about however you'd like.

Do a cartwheel.

Shift side to side.

Lay on the ground.

The world is yours.

It always was.

As long as you give up on proving yourself to them and

Don't try.

I remember the day I met you. There was an ixora in your hair... Your caramel skin seemed to glow under the sun like glazed pottery. And I was amazed. And I struggled to keep my gaping to yourself. Didn't wish to alarm you. Didn't want you noticing that I existed at all because it's so much easier to admire a person when they're unaware.

You chew your pencil when you're thinking, you know. Its a habit of yours. I find it endearing but also ridiculous. We're in university and meant to be "adults" by now, yet you keep a pencil next to the pen you write with so you don't damage the glass when you're in need of your thinking tool. I wonder if the pieces stain your teeth? How it tastes on your tongue... It must swirl and swirl with all the bitterness of wood and lead...

Oh, to be a pencil. To lose my head between the curve of your lips, lost the swirl of your tongue, bathed in your slick like an unholy baptism...

Excuse me. Excuse that. Ignore it.

And I remember the day you first smiled at me. How I marvelled in it, threatened by all your majesty. How I couldn't meet your eyes as you asked for my number. Later on, you told me you'd noticed me. And of all the guys who couldn't stop looking at you, it was me, the girl that couldn't rip their silly eyes away that you found worthy of your curiosity.

I don't know why you stayed as long as you did. I'll never understand it, Amina. I never did deserve you - even now, after everything that happened, I still think you the most precious gold in the world. But gold has little meaning without the gaze that its glow excites. Maybe that was the reason things crumbled.

I forgot that you could shine with or without me.

It was too easy for you. That day? At your wedding? Watching you take the hands of that man I had never met and kiss him the way you once did me... I still feel your lips on mine, Amina. Fresh, brightly coloured ixora in a world of dull cocoa pods. I still drift to the thought of what you and I could have been.

But here we are. A man between us like we always feared. You would rather have children and security than be with me, I suppose. Than be yourself. Truth be told, I wish I could but I still cannot understand... I would have chosen you in every reality. Risked my safety after hiding myself away for all these years in a country like ours to let myself love a woman. Love you.

Maybe it's my fault. I should have known from the moment those ixora petals brushed against my mouth, curious and gentle and desperate like an act of worship, that it would not last.

But yours was an altar I would still bow the knee at. A devotion that no being on earth could ever understand - it was sick and toxic and too dependent and too unhealthy - and a piece of my soul will long for you forever.

You have many children now, this I know. Every photo you take is all fake smiles and glazed eyes. Your ixora are still just as red. And yet they are paler and drier than I've ever seen.

You're miserable. Perhaps I could have noticed. Saved you. Forced you to see that it would only bring you sorrow. But I did not know. How could I? I only had enough space in my heart then to love you - I cared too little for myself to truly believe I was a better option. I wonder if you cry as often as you once did, in the dark, with me. I wonder if your soul is in even more hidden pieces. Pieces you and I once shared in the dead of the night, clinging to each other's warmth like thirsty mosquitos.

You were my succor. But perhaps we both abandoned each other. I read your letter. I'm sorry but it was found by your maid before your husband came home and posted to the world. They know about us, now. Your husband knows how you dreamt of me every time he touched you. He is livid, as you'd expect, not that his emotions or existence matter to me at all.

I know now that you loved me. Loved me still. Despite how easy it should have been not to - how easy I thought you must have found it. Do you remember that day? The day you left? I have so many memories of you, Amina. So much love and regret and anger and adoration and pain and nowhere to put it, anymore. At least, when you were still here, these emotions had a home. They are listless, now. I suppose I always have been.

I'm still holding onto hope that you simply faked your death to get away from that madman. I'm still hoping you'll find me some day and tell me how long you've searched, take me back to your place and show me how much you missed me all these years. I was there. Always there. You could have told me. I did not know.

I'm sorry. I shouldn't cry. It would upset you, my gold, I know that well. I'm leaving the country. Our story is a bit famous, now... I suppose people are surprised that older gays exist in this country. That it is not simply a crazy by the younger generation of Nigerians, brought on by white people and the internet. History and fear washed us all away. But to be a cocoa bean or a fiery ixora?

I've been too dull a shade for too long. It's time for another path. The people here will not leave me alone, Amina. So I am going far away. This letter is the last you will see of me. The last thing I will do before I hurry myself over to the plane is bury it close to your gravestone, to live with you forever. Some part of me, the devotee, wishes to join you where you've gone. But I know better. And I plan to live the rest of my life remembering you as you were. Because it seems no one else knew you as well as I always have.

Rest, o? Obi m. Ifunanya m. Omalicha! I left you a tiny bouquet of your favourite, little red flowers. It was all I could do and that will always be my biggest regret. I read about how hard you tried to forget about me. How you forced the thought of me away like I was a plague, desperate to be good enough to be acceptable to the world and to your religion.

No more of that. It's over. Rest. Sleep. Dream of me. Perhaps this was what would always have been. Forever awaiting each other. What a sad way to live. What a sad way to die.

If nothing else came to mind in those painful last moments, I hope your mind flashed to me. To a soul that has always been yours. I hope you remembered that you are loved.

It's not like I'm head over heels in love with my body now. I just see it as itself. I see all the squishy bits and think how fluffy it all is. All soft and warm and jiggly. I think the dissociation helped. There was a period of time where I was sort of not here to a severe level. Course, I might be wrong about the term I use to call it but my definition is mine to place in the end. My body used to look so alien to me. I'd look in the mirror and my face and skin would warp. Not too hard, just gently, gently, little blurs of "that doesn't look like me" or "why does it look so different from yesterday". Still happens once in a while, not that it matters really. I've been fat for quite a bit of my life. For me, personally, it's a mix of genetics, a deeply adoring love of food and a lack of interest in exercise. And I dunno. After so many years of telling myself bullshit and hating myself for being the jiggly giantess I am... Why bother anymore? Why do things any way I think others prefer? The shit people have done to me in my life... My own family, sef. Why bother about their opinions at all? Don't get me wrong. I get those rushes of "your body's not good enough" once in a while. There was recently a week where my roommate, friend, father, mother and brother made different random comments about weight-related shit and it all kept drilling into me I suppose. "You're a hundred kg? No, you're not". "I'd never want a big tummy, that's embarrassing". "What's your weight, daughter?" while walking down the stairs to eat dinner. I tried the whole eating disorder thing. And luckily, it didn't stick, as disappointed as that little fourteen year old child was that she was incapable of losing weight the "quicker" ways. I've seen the steps it takes to get rid of fat. Eat so and so foods. Intermittent fasting. Cut so and so out of your diet. Excercise, excercise, excercise. In my opinion, some people who lose weight are happier for it. And some are miserable. Some people spend years cutting down and being careful and skipping pizza and icecream to match the standards of society today. Personally, I don't see a problem with my size in itself. Like Lizzo I can move around.. Well not as amazingly but yeah, I can carry myself like everyone else. Me having a soft, protuding tum is just... Normal. It's easy to feel like a weird outsider when you're fat but.. I'm not. There's millions of us. Myb billions, it doesn't matter either way. Different sizes and shapes and soft <3 beauty standards do what they've always done and tear people down. I simply chose to keep myself afloat. I lost like... 25 kg once. I went to university and was severely depressed for six months. People praised me. You look so good. See the problem? And I get it. I do. Sometimes the urge to be thin still comes. They want you to have a big chest, big hips and small stomach as a woman. At least that's the standard now... Once, it was thigh gaps. In some countries they still chase that, actually. Truth is... It's not real. Doesn't exist. It's never been about health. It's about appearance for most weight loss crazes. Society's obsessive streak of making everyone feel out of control. I don't subscribe to it. I don't even know what I just typed, it's all gone. I don't think I feel serious about anything anymore. I used to push myself so hard as a child to be my idea of "perfect" based on what I'd seen. Slim and brilliant and excessively polite. An extrovert with enough friends to be "normal". But I'm not that. Some people are. Cool. I'm not that. I'm me. I've got a big, soft tum that's... Nice, actually. Protruding, yes, but does nothing to me except cushion me and sit there, causing zero harm. Unlike when I tried to carve the word FAT into it with a compass as if that word is some sort of horrific insult that would stain my soul forever. Fat is just a thing that I am. A concept that exists. It's not even real, really. Some animals are fat by nature like... Fuck, I dunno... Seals? Hippos? Depending on ur definition of fat but yeah?? And some are... Simply not. Everything has its options in nature. And if it doesn't exist there, the mind is capable of imagining and creating whatever you wish. It would be boring and stupid if we all looked the same. Besides, I've found tons of fat people attractive, larger and smaller than me both and I'm just as human as they are. So...this was long. And I didn't want to paragraph anything because I wanted to let go of control and also let this shit be CHONKY. Like I said... I'm not serious rn, just wanna goof off.. If anyone reads this, vibes. If not... Can't blame ya either ;)

And scene. Bye boo~

Thur 16 Mar 23

My day? Not great. Clouds & music? Good. Going out 4 passport shit bad.

I just want some peace.

Then Josh.

I'm struggling enough with Shadow.

I don't want to fucking talk to him.

Maybe I'll feel different tmrw.

Right now I just want 2 type "fuck you" in all caps myb & block his number.

Fuck D future & past.

Fuck hope & apathy.

Fuck all the goddamn bad parts & bad emotions. Die.

Y can't ppl just be good & honest w each other?

Me especially included.

Lots of times idk how I feel in the moment so...

FUCK.

Control. I know I want it. Use breathing as a coping mech.

In my dream I flirted w a blonde white girl in a college. D future?? ;)

I just want to be alone. Starve. Not eat. Unhealthy detached non-existent self.

This is technically the last entry. I write it down by hand into a book which may be why there's so many shortened versions of words. But the actual one is just five short lines that I wrote in there with no date:

I am afraid.

That I might truly be a lesbian.

Truly be asexual.

Truly be nonbinary...

Help?

And that's all there is. I haven't journalled in a while. I think it got hard. And I think I didn't want record of anything, anymore. The bad parts, I mean. Happy parts are nice. But if I write down just those it wouldn't feel truthful or authentic to me so what's left, then? Anyway. That was.. Nearly 6 months ago? And here I am still. We survived as we always have and always do. I am... Trying to accept whoever I may be. Not put myself in a box. Feel out whatever comes. There's a lot to my identity I may not understand but all these things are just words, anyway. What matters more to me is that I'm starting to make peace with myself, little by little. It's not always easy. It's not always hard, either. We've also made it to 5 months, 20 days with no... Err... Self-violence. Shadow is in the past, Joshua is fading away little by little by my own hand (it's sort of a relief) and We Are Still Here. Worth something. Has to be. And it means a lot to me that you're a piece of my survival. Thank you. I'm not always grateful to be here but we exist and we will be until we are not. Promise.

K bai

When I think about you, I think about murder. I think about want. Dark, heavy, desperate want. I think about your hands... I think about the shape of your voice, the stabbing glow of fiery hail onto tired flesh.

I think about everything I have ever wanted to destroy in myself.

Can I tell you one of the many things you didn't know about me, roommie? One of the many, many... All you saw was a slob. A slobulous flubulous blob of nothing. All you saw was a garbage monster that seemed to you selfish and disgusting and unworthy of respect-

And I did give you so much, didn't I? I know you didn't see it. It's so funny how we can feel so much and do so much for people who can't even tell. It's painful. That communication and misunderstandings are so synonymous. That conflict is inevitable as long as you are alive. That this is all one long, strange battle with losses and wins and draws all through.

I thought about you again, last night. I was in my bed, alone. And you came to me. Like you shouldn't. Like you always do when I'm... Unwell... Teetering... Vulnerable to attack.

You sat by my side with that friendly smile, teeth glowing in the suffocating darkness of it all. My shadow friend. I had one before... One of my own. You replaced her. You took her shape and her voice... Even my demons are modelled after you, now.

You stripped me bare, you know.

You left me nothing.

I can't tell you how many times I died before I met you.

But I can tell you how many times I did on that special night of ours.

I can tell you every moment was another knife, another, another... The blood you shed didn't touch your hands, yet it filled my lungs to the brim, it drowned me, I thought the bathroom walls would swallow me whole. And I survived, still. I don't know if I'd ever wanted to die quite as much, you gave my suicidal thoughts an entirely new meaning but here I am, still.

And there you are with me. Quiet. Small. Most of the time. But not always... Not yet.

You keep coming and going as if this home I call my head is yours to share, too. All we shared, F, was space, breath and too much brief, polite conversation. Too much blood dripping in the tense silence and forced smiles and money I'd hand over to you. Too much like a transaction, like some peace treaty from an unarmed country begging to be spared, too much danger for it to ever have lasted.

I don't know why you finally switched off the pretence to show me your true colours. I assume it's because the money stopped coming. Not that it matters, anymore.

I'd like you to know something, though. Before I'm done with this write-up about what I wish I could forget.

I'm not... Weak. I know I think I am rather often. I know I get scared too many times. But see, courage is what you think of it, like every other concept in the world. It changes shape in the hands of every holder. And I...

Survived.

Like I always have.

Like I always do.

Like I always shall, I suppose.

You may think of yourself as a good person who did one bad little thing. Perhaps the others do. I wonder if any of you think of me. Not that it matters because your ghost haunts me regardless. I had to get away. And I couldn't. Until I did. You taught me that people... People... Are not something I need to strip myself to nothing for. You taught me that people...

People are beautiful, glorious animals with lovely smiles and amusing laughter and their darker sides hidden but ever-present under the masks we all call skin.

You think you did me a favour, Favour?

Some would agree.

I... Do not. And I never will. And I hope, even with that, that you never go through anything like what you put me through. I hope you remember me if only to remember how wrong it was. I hope you don't think yourself my hero. You seemed to, that night. Couldn't tell by my shaking and crying that I wasn't well. That I didn't want any of it.

It wasn't what I wanted for us.

It's the kind of memory that makes me want to put a bullet between my eyes with a gun over and over and over, not to kill myself but for the feeling of actually crushing my own brain. Maybe I'd feel better. But not today. Not for you.

If I'm going to throw myself into the after, whether it exists or not, let it be for something else. Let it be for me. And when is a desire for death ever truly caused by one's own being. No... No, it's always about external shit. About money shit and family shit and friend shit and comparing yourself to others shit, always an attempt by the brain to protect you from being "not enough" by drilling into you that you need to attain perfection.

I'm not going to die, F.

We'll both live.

I'll never get to hurt you like you did me. Not even a little bit. I'll probably never see you again which is for the best cos I wouldn't know what to do if I did... I think I'd hate myself for either option. Violence or peace. I'd hate myself for either choice. But I won't let it get to me now. Not when you're just a spectre. A shadow sitting in my head, asking me to remember how it felt to truly be reduced to nothing for the first time in my life.

I remember. I'll never forget. And as doubtful as it may sound, I'll die before I let anything like that ever happen to me again. I'd rather be dead than die while I'm alive. I've gone on that morbid little merry-go-round enough times to last me.

Sigh.

The door certainly isn't closed. It doesn't sound like it. Healing is something I measure by my standards and this ain't it. It's not a scar yet. It gets better, scabs over, then the slightest thing tugs at the skin and makes it fresh all over again. Fine, I suppose. You'll fade at your own pace. I'll try to let you. Don't care how long it takes. Don't care if you never go away. I'm going to live regardless. And do my best to make you an insignificant nothing the way you did so skillfully.

Oh, by the way, fuck you for the memories. I'll let go of it all one day. The need to seem perfect and good, hiding my otherness the way you did yours... I'll make you disappear fully, once and for all... You'll see. I hope so, anyway.