Tag: Vague Insecurities

When I Am With You, You Drive My Mother’s Mercedes

April 1st, 2025

A strange painting hangs above me, in an empty corner of the café. In it, several airplanes seem to be barreling down toward the same point in the sky. In mere moments there will be a collision. Its strangeness, its violent sun, its illusion of movement, of an inevitable progress toward doom, pulls me in.

I attempt to separate its details, to make out the truth from what my mind insists on seeing. But as seconds begin to feel like minutes, and minutes, like hours, what separates the painting from my reality—the frames, the wall it hangs on, the paints, the lines, the shapes—slowly fade into each other.

There is no painting; there is no wall; and no café. Only fighter jets, bombers, cargo planes, passenger planes, and Babylonian buildings.

I can see them all, at my eye’s level.

I am on a skyscraper with no exterior walls, a tower made entirely of stairwells with no landings to connect them. I can see hell descending from the heavens, the children of men running from themselves, and into themselves, angels without wings, and sinners soaring.

I rest my hand on my chest, for a sign of life. I look for physical details—scars, birthmarks, unhealed wounds—on my body, for a tangible proof of my identity. And as I am searching my body, I find myself inside one of the doomed airplanes, and everyone around me is panicking.

Through the open windows, I see a young woman that looks too much like me, leaping from one flight of stairs to another below it. I call out for her but she continues. Then my name, and she turns her head and our eyes meet, but she turns away and keeps jumping from one staircase to the next.

On the staircase, I scramble after her, desperate to catch up.

A deafening bang splits the air, and I turn toward the sound. The sky erupts in a fiery red and yellow that spreads outward toward the towers and the chaos intensifies. Then, through the chaos, I see them—burning bodies, silhouettes of people engulfed in fire, falling from the sky like space debris.

When I turn back toward her direction, she is gone. I bolt down the stairs, leaping from one flight to the next, twisting left and right, squeezing through the mad crowd, searching for her amidst the blur of frightened faces.

I see things like this all the time—the end of the world—and every time, there is nothing I can do to prevent it. Nothing I can do to save her. In the end, I am all alone. Perhaps she survives, but if she does, she is alone too.

Your gaze is a patient wind; it travels through my forest of defenses and bends me to its wishes. And I am happy when it does—you have never led me astray. I trust you with my life. Sometimes, more than I trust myself with it. And I understand that this is a regretful way to feel about oneself, and a burdensome truth for you to bear. Nonetheless, I am afraid I will become a timberland of felled trees if I lose what is left of me.

It is close to midnight, and I am tired and cold. The playlist you curated for your book reading has given way to live music, and the crowd is slowly beginning to unwind. You watch me from across the cafe, while a young woman, about my age, talks to you.

She takes off her coat and drapes it over her forearm. Her corset top is your favorite color on me—a muted pink—and her hair is styled as mine is. She shifts her weight from one leg to the other, adjusting her pleated mini skirt, but your eyes follow me as I walk toward the bar and order a glass of water.

She is more beautiful than me, two inches shorter, so that even in her heels, she still has to look up to you. She has all of the adjustments you said you would make to my body when I pressed you to tell me which parts of me you would rework. And I know you see all of her, though your eyes insist on accompanying me.

She cradles three signed copies of your book as she speaks. Her hand touches your arm and your eyes excuse themselves, and return to her. I turn to the bartender and smile. He walks toward me, and I almost order a bourbon, but I resist. I promised you—and myself—I would stop drinking. Instead, I ask for two glasses of ginger ale with ice.

When I turn back to you, hoping to catch your gaze, or to see you walking over to me, I see her hiding perfect teeth behind her one-week-old manicured nails. Her entire body is laughing at something you have said. You are laughing too, but only with your face.

I pick up my glass of ginger ale, and after three gulps, I set it down beside yours. Droplets of condensation have gathered around the glass, clustering like the books that line the shelves of the café. I rise and walk over to you, the second glass in hand. Before I reach you, you see me, and your entire body turns toward me.

You take the glass from me, wrap your palm around my head, and my hair spills through the gaps between your fingers like a waterfall. It stings a little, but I do not mind. Then you pull me into you for a hug, and the patchouli from the scent I begged you to wear earlier this evening fills my nose. I close my eyes, open them again, take a slow, deep breath, then you rub my head and pull me upright.

I ask if she wants anything to drink but she declines with a smile that does not reach her eyes.

I return to an empty corner of the café, and settle into the distraction of the live band’s cover of Miles Davis’s So What. The music swirls around me, filling the space with the familiarity of your living room. I take out my phone and scroll through it, checking to see if my mother has called since she left the hospital with my lǎolao.

She is laughing again. I do not know how much longer she will continue her performance, but I wait for your eyes to tell me when to head to the car.

The inside of my mother’s Mercedes is cold, dark, and unpleasant to my skin—like her heart. I do not need to hang a photo on my bedroom wall to remember its details because I cannot escape it. Nonetheless, when I go to see you, I bring my mother’s Mercedes with me, because it reminds you of home.

I am careful not to break her precious things.

You are a beautiful man, my mother tells me—like my father. That I am better off with a faceless man.

The inside of my father’s old G-Wagon is agave green. A photo of it hangs on my wall. In the photo, I am seven, sitting next to my father on the hood of the car. A naïve smile exposes my milk teeth. He is standing, smoking a cigarette, and he is beautiful, just as I remember him.

When I am with you, you drive my mother’s Mercedes—your left hand on top. The high peaks of your knuckles cast shadows on the deep valleys between them. Your veins push against your skin. The dial on your wristwatch is agave green, like my father’s G-Wagon. You rest your idle hand on my thigh.

My heart is safe until his calls barge in, and a silence the size of my father crashes into us. I want to switch off my phone, but you insist I leave it on for my mother’s calls. You are nothing like him, nothing like the men my mother insists on. With you, I pray never to disappoint, as I do with my mother.

You do not drive like him—cautiously, uncertainly, afraid to take up space, afraid to abandon it. I tell you about him, his unwillingness to let go. I tell you he is still in love with me, and you tell me his love is too little for me. I tell you he never ran when things were difficult, and you tell me he had nowhere to run to.

We approach a crossroad. The traffic light above us is red. It is the middle of the night, and my mother thinks I am home already. You do not like it when I tell lies, so you insist I let her know I am with you.

I pretend to send her a message.

I am not worried about staying out longer than I should. She is with her mother tonight. Grandmother had insisted she visit her at the nursing home. My mother is burdened by duties. She resents her mother, and my father for leaving her. Once, she told me she did not love my father—that she only married him for his good family. I understand now that this helps her manage her loneliness. As I have always understood that I belonged to her, as she belongs to her mother.

The light turns green, and we continue toward your place. Outside, on the road, I notice a harmless dust devil, spiraling on the roadside like a small tornado, swirling sand and dry leaves in a free dance, disappearing into the abyss of the night sky.

There are words hanging loosely on your lower lip. You ask why I am still with him—why I keep him around. You do not understand how I could accept the affections of a man with a face as difficult as his. And if you do, you refuse to accept it.

You blame him for my heartache but say little about my mother. You want to save me from him, but I am afraid of what you will find when he is not there to hide everything you will hate when you get too close. You tell me I love ugly men. It disappoints you. I hate myself when you feel that way.

He calls again.

I want to turn my phone off, but you squeeze my thigh, and I stop. Thirty slow seconds come and go because he is too shameless to end a call early.

Once more, his call comes in.

This time, you want me to pick up. I refuse. You park the car on the side of the road, take a moment to study my face, then ask why he calls me as if there is still an understanding between us—why I am afraid of what he would say.

You can hear him. He wants a photo of me. He wants to know why I have not called back since he tried to reach me two nights ago. You do not want me to tell lies. I told you I had not spoken to him in weeks.

I tell him we both need to move on.

He tells me he does not understand why I am saying that.

I have to go. I tell him

Why do you have to go? He retorts.

Because I have to.

Are you with someone now? I say nothing.

Are you with someone? I’m just trying to protect you. I remain quiet.

You take my phone from me and switch it off. You do not say another word. Your hand on my skin feels like razor blades. And your eyes are unbearable.

When we get to your place, you park my mother’s Mercedes in the lot, and we take the elevator up. You make me type in your passcode, and we walk into your loft. You take my jacket and put it away. You make me sit, take off my shoes, and rub my feet. You kiss them, one at a time, gently, and our ritual begins.

Your eyes tell me I am beautiful. You want to undress me, to run your fingers down my skin, but I wish to remain clothed, sober. I am afraid of fading into you. But your gaze bends my will, and I let you do with me as you please.

You begin from the bottom, then move to the top. You turn me around, and press a kiss to the arch of my back. My eyes fix on a portrait of you on your wall. You are a little boy, bare-chested. You are alone, save for a toy airplane in your hand.

You spin me back, firmly, and I lose my footing. Your hands caress my skin, and I bleed. I am beautiful, I remind myself, in your voice. I am red all over, but I am beautiful.

You come into me, slowly, hesitating. Then you take yourself back. I pull you closer. Your hand reaches for my neck and tightens its grip. The other crashes against my face, like a car wreck, and tears escape my eyes. I do not want you to stop.

My face tightens and turns numb. I can barely breathe. I feel you grow and pulse inside me, and slowly, I fade into you.

When I wake up, you are lying next to me—asleep, naked, like a granite sculpture. You are thirty. I am twenty-five. I am with you, and you are beautiful.

In the shower, I think of him—his reckless calls. Water and blood run down my body, spiraling into the round hole in the shower, like a swelling tornado. One after the other, in a reluctant queue, I feel myself letting go of him.

I step forward and close my eyes. Water falls on my face, soothing the ache where your hand crashed into me. I feel you washing away too. I reach for you, but then I feel him trying to grab hold of my hand, and I shake him off. You too.

I reach again, for you. And I feel his grip. You are too close to him, and he is too close to you. I reach for your clenched fist, but your knuckles dig into my palm. I shift my weight from one leg to the other, doing my best to shake him off. But he holds on.

I try again, and again. But every time I reach for you, he grabs my hand. Exhausted, hopeless, my palms aching, I beg you to fight him off, to reach for me. But your fist remains clenched, like a rock.

I let go.

I wait for a while, for a miracle, for you to come back to me. But I hear my mother’s voice behind me and I spin around. I see her face, wrinkled with disappointment, looking at me. I reach for her, fragile and expectant, but she vanishes behind the bathroom mist, beyond the glass door. And my eyes catch an unpleasant rendering of my face.

I turn off the running water, open the shower door, and cold air rushes in from your living room. I look for your towel, but I do not see it.

I am naked, I am alone.
Extremely Harmless & Incredibly Underwhelming

August 1st, 2024

Ugonna kisses me now. He tells me he loves the way I love him.

I want him to tell me that he will not see the woman whose hair butter I still smell on his pillow again. That I was all he thought about when he was with her. And that he only indulged her because he thought I had given up on what he wanted us to have.

I want him to know that I forgave him before he asked for it, even though he has yet to ask for it. I want to tell him all these things, but he is half-asleep now. So I pick myself up from his bed and carry my thoughts and my heavy chest into his bathroom. I hurry. I do not want him to see what mourning him, not knowing when he would come back to me, has done to my body.

I slide into his rubber slippers. They are too big for me, but I do not mind. Everything about Ugonna has always been too big for me. He liked me that way. Overwhelmed.

The water is cold now, so I let it run against the wall until I am engulfed by hot steam. I turn the faucet a little to the left and direct the water rushing out of the shower head into my palms, gently pouring it between my thighs until red water runs down my legs and gathers around my feet, coloring the white tiles beneath me. They do not stay there for long. I watch them as they run down the drain in a dizzying spin.

I guide the steady beat of the lukewarm water across my face, letting it linger on my right cheek for a while. When I am done, I open his bathroom window to let out all the steam that has gathered on his walls and ceiling.

He is fully asleep now. Harmless. Underwhelming. Just how I like him. I settle into his bed and gently wiggle my way into his arms. The evening sun is falling below the frame of his bedroom window. I wait for it to disappear. This time, yesterday, I was on my way here. There was no orange sun to commemorate meeting Ugonna again. Just a community of clouds loudly discussing the rain, while my eyes celebrated seeing the inside of his home for the first time since I ended things with him.

The sun is gone now. Ugonna shifts his weight, and I do the same so I can breathe. I feel myself falling asleep so I close my eyes. I notice a butterfly hanging upside down by the window, her pale turquoise wings as still as an old widow’s home. I can tell she is not from around here. She stares at me, and I stare back. I wonder how she got in here. Ugonna never leaves his doors and windows open. I walk over to check on her, but each step I take feels like a step away, so I begin to run towards her. The faster I run, the further away I get. I stop running. I look around the room and see myself on the bed with Ugonna. The me on the bed looks like she is fighting for air. Ugonna’s arm is around my neck. I try to walk over to move his arm, but each step feels like a step away from myself. I try to run, but that only pulls me further away.

A heavy fear wraps itself around me. I spin around in search of something to grab hold of and find myself standing next to the butterfly. Her wings flutter slightly. In a panic, heavy air forces its way into my lungs, and my lungs push back. I attempt two careful steps toward the glass window. I slide it open to let the butterfly out, and a sudden gust of wind blasts through, knocking me down. The butterfly too. She flaps her wings and circles the floor next to me in a seizure. I try to pick her up, but her wings turn to dust. I get up and shut the window. My chest swells and collapses even more as I struggle for air. I place my left palm on my chest and try to settle my heart so it does not get away from me. A severe pain takes a heavy jab at my chest and I fall back to the ground. I feel myself shutting down. A total darkness.

Ugonna kisses me now. He tells me I have been out for a little more than a couple of hours. He asks if I am too tired to eat, but I am sore between my legs and do not want to make the trip to the kitchen. I ask him to pick me up and take me to the parlor.

He places my risotto on the coffee table, turns off the air conditioner, picks up the TV remote, and settles into the sofa.

“City is playing Tottenham today,” he says excited. “The guys will pick me up after the game.” I say nothing.

“You want me to wake you up before leaving?” he asks.

“If you feel like it,” I say.

I want to tell him to stay with me, that I am afraid of what will happen if he leaves again, but this would irritate him. Instead, I wrap myself up in the blue knit blanket a friend got him for his birthday and let my head fall into his lap.

I shut my eyes. Tightly, this time.
The Monster Under My Bed Looks Just Like You, 3

April 1st, 2024

A Wedding in Enugu

Antonia, I am guilty of playing God. I do not know where to begin, or where to end. Would saying too little make it seem like I do not care. And how do I know to stop myself from saying more than I need to. Perhaps I should not concern myself with these thoughts. I would be feeding the very demon you chastise me of. But you must know that it is not perfection I am obsessed with. It is a clarity of mind. One that, like God, had forsaken me for many months.

I have sat with myself, for weeks now, since receiving your letter, in an attempt to make sense of who I was during the last few months of our time together in Beijing. And I have sought reason and clarity for my actions towards you, despite a truth that I am quite certain never abandoned me. And so with little clarity on when to defend myself, and when to hold myself accountable, I am writing to you again, hoping not to succumb to the words whose midst I now find myself.

I am sorry to hear about your mother. I would lose myself if any-thing happened to mine. And I would hate the world and curse God for afflicting such an unfairness on me.

No child should experience a loss so deeply set before they are able to fully settle into the brutality of life. And your dad. How is he taking it? My father often tells my mother that it is her duty to bury him. I think I can understand that. I would not want to face my elderly years without the company of my favorite person in the entire world.

I have so many questions I want to ask you. And I worry I will disturb your grieving heart. But it is best I carry on with them.

You never really told me why you did it. And I do not know that you ever will. Why choose now to tell me that you are carrying our little girl, if you have decided to rid yourself of her? What is it you are playing at? It must have been convenient for you to assume that she would have destroyed the progress we had made at finding normalcy in our life before your father called you back home. It is difficult to believe that this was your reason for hiding her from me.

I have so many more questions I want to ask you. But before I do, it is important that I share with you the sorry details of how I came to learn about your affair with Bartholomew.

But first, before I forget, I feel I should let you know that your father’s attentiveness towards you is not because he knows about the child you have done such a brilliant job of keeping from everyone in your life. It is because he worries about you. And beyond that, he needs your company now more than ever.

Anyways, the affair. Barbara stopped by our apartment while you were in Shanghai with your Supervisor. And she asked if we could have dinner together. Bartholomew, she said, had left for Shanghai in a hurry the previous day. And she thought she could spend the evening with you and I.

I told her you were in Shanghai as well.

She came over the next morning to ask if I had any clothes that needed to be dry cleaned, and I handed her two of my blazers and the white linen shirt you bought me in Shanghai. I planned on dropping them off that afternoon. She came to see me later that evening to let me know my clothes would be ready the next day. And then she asked if she could join me for dinner and a few drinks at our place.

A couple hours later, when I had gotten off the phone with you, after you informed me that your Supervisor wanted you in Shanghai for a few more days, she came over with some local meals she had prepared. And before settling down to eat, we stopped by the liquor store downstairs, to pick up a bottle of Caribbean Rum and some vitamin drinks for the night.

Barbara asked a lot of questions. Mostly about you and your job. How often you were away. The last few times you had traveled. And when and where you traveled to. She wanted to know how I came to own my white kimono linen shirt with the hibiscus embroidery. And about your pink quilted sandals laying about in the living room.

The night was coming along okay, until she picked up the phone to say good night to Bartholomew, and I heard So Long, Marianne in the background. I did not think much of it at first. Until the song that played right after. I am sure you know which one that is. And then all of Barbara’s questions came rushing back to me.

This time, without all of the simple answers that hid an ugly truth.

And I came undone.

I do not recall when Barbara got off the phone with her husband, or how long she sat with me in silence, waiting for me to return to myself. But when I heard her come out of the toilet, as she walked back into the parlor to clean up the table, I thought about the rest of her conversation with Bartholomew, and then began sieving through all the details I knew would become our undoing.

Barbara was washing the dishes when I joined her in the kitchen. She had not turned on the ceiling light, and I did not bother with it either. It seemed we were both content staying in the dimness for a while. Though the light above the staircase landing cast a soft glow into the kitchen that allowed us to carry on with the dishes.

She took her time with each plate. So my thoughts had a while to fight the truth with the delusion that what I heard over the phone was a mere coincidence. I wondered why Barbara was there. Did she come over to learn more about the woman her husband had abandoned her for. And the man that had not done enough to keep his partner’s gaze at home. I rinsed each plate and gently arranged them on the dish rack. And for what felt like a while we carried on in silence.

Barbara’s skin had become warm to the touch. Her arm had rubbed against mine each time she handed me a plate. I thought it was the rum. Then I thought… but Barbara, without turning to look at me, asked if she could spend the night. And when I asked why, she took a moment, but chose to continue with the dishes.

When we were done, Barbara turned on the lights in the kitchen, and examined each of the plates in the dish rack carefully.

Barbara and I sat in the parlor and talked about her new job attending to passengers on Hong Kong Airline’s short-haul flights. Three years had passed since she resigned from her job in Singapore to marry Bartholomew. And she had started looking into attending flights because she wanted to make sure she had no time to regret leaving her husband. She also said she had found an apartment close to the airport, but had delayed signing the lease because she was not sure about Bartholomew.

She told me why she was leaving Bartholomew. She even asked if I planned on proposing to you; if you had been to my home town. I told her we had plans to visit the previous summer, but something came up at work. I did not bother with the details of whose work got in the way. I did not think it was necessary to tell her that. But I wonder now, how honest you were about that.

I woke up the next day’s afternoon to a knock at the door. Barbara had called a moving company to help her move her things out earlier that morning. She had come to let me know she was leaving and to apologize for the rest of our night. She asked if I would be okay. And for a while we held each other in an embrace.

A few minutes had passed when the truck driver called to let her know they were ready to leave. She asked if she could have something that belonged to me. Something I bought myself. And as she walked away from me, I thought about our night together. How we laid on the floor and talked about all the flights she was going to attend. And the tears that turned her eyes to a shiny glass when she talked about her widowed mom in Hong Kong.

I held onto myself that night, so I could comfort Barbara. I owed her that much. She had been attentive enough to notice what remained hidden to me for so many months.

I will stop here. Because the rest of it, you already know.

Antonia, being cheated on, I learned very early in life, is a feeling that can only breathe one way. You can either let it go and not give it any chance to frame what is left of your relationship, or you can hold on to it and allow the dark clouds it comes with to hover above all that is precious to you. And when enough clouds gather in, they will invite a storm that will destroy everything in its path.

And yet, knowing all of this, I held on.

And the details of your betrayal, the sleepless nights, and the insatiable desire to understand why you chose such a violent way to tell me that you were too scared to take the next step in our relationship, had me as their object. And when they were done with me, a different madness had its way with me as well. One that came with a rope that pulled me down to an endless pit, tied a noose around my neck, and dared me to find my way out.

And in that pit, God abandoned me. And the devil had his way with me. And no matter which way I tried to go, I felt the noose pulling at my neck. Nothing mattered anymore.

I wanted you to feel what I was feeling. So I searched for ways to punish you for your iniquities. Because God, I was convinced, was too gracious to do it Himself.

I did not search for long. You were like a Catholic in the middle of Lent, insisting on all manner of punishment. So as penance, you convinced me of your devotion by offering yourself as a tool for all of my pleasures. And without restraint, I indulged.

The shame of the rage I acquainted your body with, your tears that aroused me, and my neglect for you during those months follows me still. I was lost, and lonely in my despair. I knew hurting you would not heal me. But I did not care.

Healing was not an option for me.

But then I met Barbara, and everything changed. I took one of her flights to Hong Kong. And later that night, we met at the bar in the hotel she and her aircrew were staying. We talked until dawn, and then she had to hurry back upstairs.

She was doing a lot better. She talked a lot. More than she used to. I thought it was an act at first. But as she talked, it became difficult to deny the nowness of her spirit. She was present. She had let go of the past. Including the one that we shared. And when we said goodbye, she asked, again, if I would be okay. And with a desperate gentleness I told her I wanted to be.

And for the first time, healing became an option.

A few days later, on my flight back to Beijing, the tears finally came and filled the pit. And the current carried me with it until I found myself on hope’s shoreline.

Now you know why everything changed after Hong Kong.

Antonia, I hope that when the day comes that you choose to tell our story to strangers that take a seat in your new life, that you will tell them how well I loved you, before you tell them how much I hated you for becoming too familiar with our neighbor while his wife mourned the end of her marriage in our living room.

I am guilty of many things. I will be the second to admit it. But hating you, is too ambitious a task, even for me. It is because I needed you, that I was so careless with you. And it is because I was sure I had lost you, that I was so willing to burn you down with a slow fire.

You were right. I became the devil. But even he loved you the only way he knew how to.

For my part in all of this, I am deeply sorry.

My cousin Ifemefuna is married now. It was a small wedding in our compound. My mother was happy to confirm that a baby had nothing to do with the rushed marriage. Last week, Ifem and her husband, Ikenna, visited my parents to thank them for their help with the wedding. I asked her, when we were alone, why she wanted to get married so quickly. She said that she was tired of saying good bye to Ikenna every time she went to visit him in the parsonage where he lived.

I wish you told me that Abuja was too much of a rush for you. Nonetheless, I know it has been over a month since you wrote to me, but I hope you kept the little one. It is dangerous to play God.

Look after yourself.

Sincerely,

Anthony Ibeanu.
The Monster Under My Bed Looks Just Like You, 2

February 1st, 2024

A Death in Maryland

Anthony, do you not think it rather strange to write to me in such a manner if you do not wish to hear back from me again. And do you not know that ending your letter the way you did was disingenuous; or am I the only sinner here.

My mother is alright now. She passed on the 3rd of January. On the same day your letter was dropped off at my place in Bethesda. In the end, she looked tired. Like she did not want to be here anymore.

I miss her everyday.

I was going to honor your request not to write back. But as weeks went by, and I read your letter more than a few times, I came to a settled conclusion that despite your words, you wanted me to write back. And even if you did not, I was going to. I needed to keep my mind away from everything that was going on in Maryland.

It seems nothing about the way we left things has changed. You still think you are above wrongdoings because I have sheltered your thoughts; because those who love you have kept your sins away from you. And so you walk around with your barely wounded heart, and your ignorant mind that believes you are without sin.

But you must know that the tragedy of your perfection is that it demands that everyone else bear your flaws. And I am too tired now to continue doing that.

So here are a few burdens you can help yourself with.

The child I am carrying is yours. But soon, that will not matter.

And it only took you this long to put together the reasons why I left things the way I did because it had been a while since you abandoned your affections for me. Because despite lending me forgiveness in our darkest hours, you only stayed with me because you felt my wrongdoings had afforded you superior standing in the affairs of our lives. And I accepted it because I imagined you would see the wrong in your ways, and come back to yourself. But you never did.

I prayed for you. For God to heal the wounds I inflicted upon you so you could look at me the way you used to. But He did not answer me. I suppose He could not answer me. To do so would have meant getting through to you. But you were taken by the devil and his ways.

You used my body when it pleased you. You tied me up and wrapped your palms around my neck until my eyes begged for my last breath to be let out, so you could be let in. And when you were finished with me, as your ropes came undone, I waited for your eyes to meet mine .

Summer came and went, and slowly, Beijing’s roads were filled with yellow leaves. And then October came around, with its cold breeze. And my father called and told me the doctor said my mother would not make it through Christmas if she was not operated on.

My father had tried his best to avoid anything that would require cutting open my mother’s skin. But that was the only way he could keep her around now. And so he let them slice my mother open.

And when I told you about my mother, and you took my hands to say a prayer for her, I watched your face and listened to your words, and I wondered who you were praying to. How can a man that has refused to listen to God, talk so casually to Him. But you carried on praying. Because as long as my mother was just alright, I would not need to leave Beijing and you.

And for some time after her surgery, she was okay. And so were we.

Until the first snow of the winter. I still remember that day. It was the morning of December the thirteenth. It was not supposed to snow that morning. I know because I checked the weather before booking my supervisor’s flight the night before. But it snowed. And her flight to Shanghai was delayed until later that morning.

When I woke up feeling a little ill that morning, like the previous mornings, I quietly made my way to the bathroom, opened the test kits I had bought on my way back from work a few nights before, and made sure to follow all the steps, three times.

A little while later, I heard you get out of bed, and I ran out the door with very little clothes on so I could get rid off the test kits in the bin downstairs. And that was when I noticed it had been snowing.

And for a moment, I debated going back upstairs to put on more clothes but I was not ready to announce that you were going to be a father. I was not sure how you would take it.

But I did not want another lie to come between us again.

I was going to tell you. I decided I would in the elevator. But when I got to the door and heard you on the phone with your mother, and that you were telling her how good things were in Beijing, a chilling fear settled on me.

So I waited outside our door, until you went back upstairs.

The neighbors that walked by were a bit confused, I tried to smile, to let them know everything was okay. The groceries I ordered the night before arrived. Some of your packages too. Mr. Williams said hello as he rushed off to school. But not before stopping to let me know his family in Maryland were coming to visit for Christmas when St. Paul’s High closed for the holidays.

As I stood in the hallway, watching the snow through the window, I recalled going to China Japan Friendship Hospital with Martha a few years back, so I planned to go back that weekend. But I would later develop a cold that kept me in bed for a week.

I was scared you would find out. I imagined every possible way it would happen so I could be ready for it. And then, I recovered. Days before Christmas. And I got the call from my father that I needed to come back home. He would not say why. But I knew then that my mother was not going to make it.

And just like that, a fear greater than losing you barged into me. And so I began planning my trip back to Maryland. But I could not bring myself to telling you the truth. Because with you, I was always careful not to put too much on your plate.

You hated having too much on your plate. It made you sick.

My mother hardly prayed for herself when she was in the hospital. Not even when the doctors said her health was improving, or when they said she was getting worse. She did not like to bother God with inevitables. So she focused her prayers on my well being.

My father said she did so because she loved me. But if you love someone, what good is your absence?

I wish she knew about the baby. Maybe then I would have a reason to keep her around. I do feel my father knows. He has been very careful with me lately. Or perhaps it is because of my mom. Nonetheless, I am ashamed of how I spent the last few months of my mother’s precious life. And I do not want a child that will remind me of it.

Anthony, I pray no one puts you through what you put me through. While my actions back then may have hurt you, it takes true hatred to burn someone down with a slow fire; to hurt them until that is all they know how to feel.

Before my mother died, she held my hands in prayer, and asked God to deliver me from the evil that men do, and to send me someone who can be honest about the little love they can spare me.

So far, I believe He has answered one of her prayers.

Maybe it is not such a bad thing that your cousin Ifemefuna is with child. People are not just one thing. Perhaps it will do your mother some good to experience a little disappointment. Because it is pathetic to only love a person on their brightest days.

Antonia Anderson.
The Monster Under My Bed Looks Just Like You, 1

January 1st, 2024

A Winter in Beijing

Antonia, I would ask about your ailing mother, but I do not think I want to hear from you after this.

I thought I was going to die the other night. It has been three times now since you left that my lungs have forgotten to do anything with the air inside it, because my whole body was too busy trying to make sense of the reasons why you insisted everything we shared had to come to an unnecessary end on Christmas Eve.

And then my mother called. And slowly, my chest settled, as she shared news about my cousins from my father’s side.

One of them, Ifeanyi, who is around my age, though a little younger, is getting married before February’s end. My father used to sponsor his undergraduate studies, but he dropped out of school a year ago to open a church inside the apartment building my father gave his mother, my father’s sister.

I am sure he has come up in our conversations.

She also shared news about Ifeanyi’s sister, Ifemefuna. She too has decided to take some time away from school. Last week Sunday, the assistant Pastor at their church came with her mother and Ifeanyi to see my father. Because the assistant pastor was interested in marrying Ifemefuna. My mother thinks she is pregnant. She thinks that is why they are hurrying everyone up. But my father disagrees. He said his sister and the assistant pastor have no reason to tell such unnecessary lies. That it is in her nature to rush things.

It was then that the details of the weeks leading up to your hurried decision to leave us came to me. Like the changes to your body you said was because of your new diet, the tampons you stopped asking me to pick up at the store, and the unusually long showers you started taking in the mornings. And then I felt my chest begin to tighten again, and I held on to my mother’s voice.

And just before my mother had to go, I asked her what she would do if she learned that Ifemefuna was indeed pregnant, but she could not hear me. The network had dropped for a moment. And I did not ask again. I knew what she would say. She would be disappointed. But in the end, she would be there for her. Because unlike my other cousins from my father’s side, my mother was always fond of Ifemefuna.

Before hanging up, my mother said she loved me. That she wished I had come home for Christmas. She also said that my father could not come to the phone, but he misses me too. And that my tomatoes, the ones in her garden, had ripened, and she had made my favorite stew with them for Christmas.

But she did not ask about you. Though, I wish she did.

I wanted to tell her how you left in such a hurry. And that she was right about you and I. That I spent the last days before Christmas, and all of Christmas in bed trying to decide how I was going to keep you around, before booking a flight to D.C. to see you. But you insisted you did not want to see me again.

I think I am okay now. At least I am trying to be.

Christmas has come and gone, and the green on the Christmas trees are fading, along with the sting of our last words to each other, before you cut off all communication with me.

The new year is quiet in Beijing. I thought I would like that. So I am writing to you now because I want to let you know that I am trying to forgive you. Even if you do not deserve it. That I think I know why you left us behind in such a hurry. And that you were right to do so without telling me. Because it would have broken me. And I would have done things to your body I know I would regret.

Anyways, this is the last time you will hear from me. I hope you and the child I have concluded you are carrying are doing okay. Unless, of course, you chose yourself. If that is the case, then I pray you find peace with where your choices have brought you. I am trying to do the same.

I have been struggling to keep my mind in this city. And though there are a few things in Beijing I could occupy myself with, I feel I should go home to Enugu. Ifemefuna’s wedding is coming up at the end of January. And it would be a great place to reconnect with my cousins from my father’s side of the family.

Do take care of your mother. I will miss you.

Sincerely,

Anthony Ibeanu.
Before We Fall, 2

August 1st, 2023

Munachi, I always suspected that your mother thought of me as weak. And my last visit to Enugu to see her, settled any doubts I held on to. While I appreciate her fondness, it has suddenly become important that I make it clear to you, why I can only find your concerns and those of your mother, and your best friend, Afamefuna, slightly irritating and mostly unnecessary.

You have always been enough for me. And it is not because you have been too generous. Nor is it because of the man your mother encourages you to become. Or the man that my mother thinks you already are.

I am with you because unlike my father, you do not pretend to know what is best for me. You do not consider me fragile. And you do not insult me with promises of becoming a better man. As if I do not have enough inside of me to draw conclusions on the character of the man whose house will shelter my children, and the vulnerable years of my life.

Munachi, I do not ask for much. My father made sure of that. I am not interested in a fairy tale I did not author. And I do not want a man that will conquer, for me, a world I did not ask for. And while your mother may feel that it is your duty to fill in the blanks of my heart’s desires, where I am hesitant to ask, it is important that you resist the urge to do so. It is greed.

I have known greedy men. I have laid in bed with them. And I have drowned in the waves of their transient satisfactions. They sang Songs of Solomon to me. They shape shifted into warriors that fought for my happiness. And told me stories about the worlds they had conquered and how they could deliver all of its glories to me. And I stretched my hands out and received.

And while the joys of the moment shut my eyes, they walked away, and left me with a defeated world. And I did not know what to do with it. Because I did not want any of it. I only wanted them. And all of the things I thought I needed to satisfy their insatiate thirst.

I used to know a greedy man who found pleasure in the number of worlds he could offer me. And once he had given me the world he could afford, he cast me aside for another naive little girl. And when she asked for it, he took it all away from me and gave it to her.

Munachi, I have known greedy men, and the greedy little girls that arouse them.

So you and your mother should not assume to know what I want. Do not get it into your head now that you are not enough for me. I am not with you because of your generosity. And I am not with you because you can conquer the world. I do not want any of it.

My reasons are simple. They belong to you and I. And as long as you are able to protect us from the noise that will come from outside of us, I will remain yours.

And on the days I am unable to have all of you, I will hold on to the parts of you that stay with me.

Always, Kosisochi Agu
Before We Fall, 1

July 1st, 2023

Kosisochi, I have never been very good for you. I knew that was the simple truth. And though you did not expect much from me, and was satisfied with the little I was willing to give to you, I knew I had only afforded you the worst versions of myself.

I have boarded the last Air Peace from Enugu to Lagos. All of the last few years are hurrying back to me like a last minute warning. I am on my way to pick up your engagement ring.

I am thinking a lot about you. About the first time I met you, and about all the things that are waiting for us on the other side of me getting on my knees, and giving you what you have always asked of me. I am thinking about the relief on your mother’s face when I shared my plans with her. How she wished your father was there to thank me for looking after their daughter.

And I am thinking about the muscles on my mother’s face. And how they struggled to conjure up a smile that was befitting of the news of her son’s engagement plans.

But I was barely surprised.

My mother has always been very fond of you.

She wanted to know why I thought you were the right person to spend the rest of my life with; how much I cared for you, and how much of myself I was willing to give to you. She also told me that she invited you to come see her alone after our last visit.

She told me she could not get you to open up about us. That despite the weight you carried on your shoulders, you were only willing to share beautiful words. She respects that about you. How little you are willing to share with outsiders. But she worries for you.

She thinks that a woman who sees me the way you do, will often ask little of me. And so she wanted to know if I could give to you more than you were willing to ask.

My mother has always been very fond of you because you remind her of her elder sister. She was meek, just like you, she often said. And for that, she died face down on her farmland, diabetic, and alone, while her husband and kids waited for her at home.

The pilot has just informed us to put our things away. It is quite late now, and I worry I will not be able to pick up the ring from Christabel tonight. I have a morning flight to Abuja tomorrow. And so do your parents.

My mother said she would be there if I told her all the truth about us. And I did. She thinks we do not belong together. And I cannot help but feel the same after revisiting the last few years, in the company of a jury of my mother’s disappointed eyes and silent tongue.

The man next to me is praying for a safe landing. And I cannot help but wonder if you would carry on with your life if everything ended this very moment, for me, and everyone on this flight. Would you meet another man that would give you more than you are willing to ask for, or would you surrender yourself to him as you did to me.

The plane landed well. And I am waiting for Ayọ and the car at arrivals. He should have been here already.

Kosi, I do not want you to end up like my aunt. I hate my uncle and my cousins for it everyday.

But it is important you understand that I need you. I have needed you from the very first time you drove to my place in Utako with food during your lunch break at work. And I still need you now, and may never stop needing you. And I know it is selfish of me to want to spend my life with you for all the things that you are willing to do for me. But I have always been very honest about the limits of my feelings for you.

I have waited all these years for you to walk away from us, and you are still here. Perhaps this is so because in a moment of weakness I asked you to never leave me. Perhaps it is because your legs have forgotten how to run from the things that will destroy you.

Whatever the reason, it is only right that I offer you another chance to walk away from me, before I ask you to spend the rest of your life with the lesser half of me.

Ayọ is here now. I should go. I will call you when I get back.

Munachi Achebe.
I Don’t Want To Be a Soldier, I Don’t Want To Die

March 1st, 2023

The first girl that broke my heart cried on my behalf. I still remember that night in high school like it was yesterday. In truth, I do not care much for her anymore, except for the gaping wound that she left me with. And all the women it haunted since her.

Her name is Yoko Tōsuke. And she is Japanese. Her mother named her after Yoko Ono, Lennon’s wife. She loved the Beatles, Lennon especially. And she often told stories of meeting Yoko and Lennon at her grandfather’s antique shop in Yushima when she was twelve.

Yoko would not stop crying until I walked her back to the girl’s dormitory. I thought I would kiss her one last time. But she never looked back. And when I saw her in the school cafeteria the next morning, she was laughing at another man’s joke.

And I was carrying a box of chocolates.
Who I Am Is Someone Who Leaves

February 1st, 2023

I am sure that when you told me I could be whoever I wanted to be, in your many attempts at saving me from myself, you expected I would always want to be yours.

I am sure of it. Because I felt it too.

So, how is it that I am not interested in you anymore? Even though I still care for you, I have the strangest urge to push you away, now that I have left home for this new place I find myself in. I want to see other people, make brighter memories, and feel things you said I would one day feel if I could just crawl my way out of the hole I hardly noticed when you were around.

Why does wanting something outside of you feel this wrong? What has become of me?

How do I tell you these things without you resenting me, without you feeling like you were never good enough? How do I tell you that I am a better person now, and that staying with you reminds me of who I used to be and how little I once felt about myself?

Despite all the breaking this may do to you, I feel you should know the truth about the last few months. I met a boy who looks at me the way you do, with immortal eyes, except he never worries about me and all the harm I could cause myself. He tells me it is okay to cry, and that he often does the same. Nothing has happened with us. I needed to write to you first, after all the silence I inflicted upon you.

I hope that when you read this, you will understand, and take heart in knowing that you have done nothing to wrong me. You were perfect then, and to me, you will always be without flaw. But flawlessness is too much for me right now.

I do not want to feel so small anymore.

Please forgive me for leaving you worse than I found you, and for not offering you anything decent in the time that we shared in each other’s company.

I hope the next time I see you, whenever I find my way back to Abuja, we can share a weightless smile.

Take care of yourself,

Amarachi Onu.
Bed Peace

December 1st, 2022

I am so scared of settling with you because I do not know what version of you forever will leave me with. And though you have given me so much of yourself these last fews years, and have taken so many different forms in your attempt at settling us down, I do not know that you are the woman that you say you are.

I am also scared of my sixties and seventies, and the many evenings I will walk into my empty home and fall asleep on a bed that only ages on one side. And I will think about you and the man that now loves you, whose children have given you grand children, and I will wonder if you have loved him as you would have loved me.

I am so scared of it all, because I know that how you feel about him will not matter to you. Your bed ages evenly, and I am a distant memory.

Tag: Vague Insecurities

A Wedding in Enugu

A Death in Maryland

A Winter in Beijing