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it’s as though i forgot too soon. not forgot. forgotten would have meant having no memory of other lips on mine — their texture, their warmth, the breath i steal. it would have meant not knowing the sound of my name from a deep voice, whispered, murmured, caressed, because—simple because—the feelings cannot be helped.

i met myself in the body of a man i like. that soul i’m familiar with; i hate… i love. the soul i wish would stay still under sunlight before it hides itself away.

how dare i forget what i do to myself for the promise of a hand being held? at times, i’m in a crowd. the music is loud, people are dancing and me too. then i stop, suddenly. i stand there, a sprout.

how did i get here?

the answer is funny. i never forgot. i didn’t lie about being in love with myself. i’ve shared many kisses for one to pin me down. if i’m ever dishonest, the next day will find me crying for no reason.

the truth is, i’m looking for a way to love myself unconditionally.

i’m mesmerized by my own pain and it’s almost funny how the man i keep my eyes chained to, can marry, have children, build a life in front of me, and still leave me pining after the shadow he never offered. he only ever wanted the girl next door, untouched by struggle, and i could’ve loved him better; he could’ve been anything but unattainable—why did he have to be white?

this career i chase won’t let me sit at the table, keeps closing doors that never opened, but my mind is full of ideas i can’t carry, ideas that run wild and rot at the same time. am i nurturing insanity, or just feeding the only thing that pays attention to me? i’m a masochist, i know this, because if it doesn’t let me bleed to the brink of my own life, i start to wonder if i’ve lived at all or if i’m lying through my teeth for applause no one’s giving.

could’ve been worse. i could be a shopaholic living on next month’s rent, borrowed from a stranger who wants me to play daddy’s little girl, who doesn’t ask but expects me anyway. i don’t drink enough to forget it, but i don’t stop enough to fix it either.

so i play, barter with my charm, my body, in this perfect counterfeit life. i’m the second generation heir’s obsession, his beautiful problem. my beauty is limited, but i know how to fuck—isn’t that enough to keep surviving?

i love money still, i love it like a god i don’t believe in, and if it doesn’t love me back, tell it racism is overrated. tell my dream lover too, the one who thinks hair that shrinks and skin that darkens is god’s privilege—though i don’t believe in god, just in the hell he swears we both belong in so we can let our morals go without guilt.

i’m educated though, liberal enough to tell my morals i’m worse than a nun, smart enough to have invented a phenomenon sometime ago: ‘being a woman ain’t nothing good’. imagine childbirth at fifteen—imagine surviving it.

but my stolen red lipstick is betraying me again, a small rebellion in a life that takes more than it gives, the way these lips stay perfectly done without ever having a kisser to ruin them. good lord, when is the next december?

as it stands, my time spent on earth is riddled with cowardice. the lack thereof takes its little bites, but when i’m not lazy, i’d rather crawl back to my mama’s house — the government house, yes.

if i wasn’t told to school, i wouldn’t know how to write my name. tell me, what good does knowing how my name looks, what it means, even bring? and had money not dictated my quality of water, why would i stand in a queue to get my thumb marked? my water is still bad.

there’s a spinelessness to who i am. i could say it wears comfort as makeup. i don’t know the name of my phone still. people used it, many people have it… so i had to have it.

the world is round, there’s night and day — can i argue?

i badmouth the girl who writes poetry, without a car to drive, yet i write it with my soul. can my soul move me from a to b? ah… so there was a point to that schooling.

maybe god laughs at me — i’m his pastime serial. the last episode… i was job hunting, yet without any government unemployment fund.
who told my mother to hate technology but want to be a businesswoman? this way, am i a criminal?

had i been hunting for marriage, wouldn’t i be a housewife with four children? i’m wrong to say this — a homemaker is the right term.

yes. i’m cowardly.

pretty things tell others to become pretty. and the world revolves around the loudest voice.
how bad. tell me, where i should’ve inherited teaching my eyes to change colour. change… to say the things my mouth wouldn’t say and keep those leaving my life.
i’m a black woman. one afraid of her own shadow, and yet cannot embrace a man. cannot give myself for fear the black man is harsh. even holding him at arm’s length, my heart would be beaten black and blue.
when was i pretty? i was pretty once, when i smiled at a joke i didn’t understand. my voice has lost many times before, but it didn’t go unnoticed, it is pretty.
to my father, to my mother, to the world, to this faith, to myself. i’ve lost many times before. but, if i am to get married with children, will i ever be pretty?

i’m embarrassed.

they never told stories about the graveyard. the dead don’t either. if my heart follows that tradition, then i’m a girl coming of age, a maiden. who’s seen me naked?

i didn’t die and become forgotten… the first, the second, the tenth—eventually, a husband who should’ve stayed. no, i’m pure.
i’m owning this feminism. say, i’ll walk up to a guy i know i’ll never want to see again—a little tipsy, just walked out of that funeral, my heart still mourning a life, a love lost too soon. and that guy—do you think i’m pretty? i’m wearing nothing underneath.

my mother probably cries for me. i’ll cry some days too.

but, am i pretty? it’s no shame. say he wants me as he’s never wanted anyone else. a pretty lie. a dead lie. and then we’re lost. we’re losing. it’s mournful how the head hangs for both of us the next morning.

there was a child there. lives connect so miserably. i love my son. an embarrassment. tomorrow, the death of me, another cliché, soon to be forgotten.

my mother didn’t cry enough. but, what about graveyards… they have no voice. life isn’t here.

one day — two ordinary words, yet they’ve built a home inside my world.

there was a one day when i was a little girl, when another child had a doll she refused to lend me. i thought, one day, my papa would take me to school in his brand-new car. one day, my mother would help me with my homework. the kind of one day that made me cry and ask my parents if i was a bastard for having my mama’s name.

and then, i grew into a beautiful young lady. what one day couldn’t i have? i took pictures when my crush asked. i fell in and out of small loves. how many divorces have i gone through, really? but one day, i told myself, i would be someone’s forever. no, not yet — maybe just a keeper of someone’s heart. i thought a career in dresses might one day let me own a car.

there’s no lucky guy though. i’ve shared many kisses into university, but my one day there became darker. imagine — the minister’s son already in a bmw, while i’m from a government’s settlement. one day… they’ll call me a gold digger. this — a career beyond my unnaturally accented english. “what’s your middle name?” innocentia, i say, though it’s not documented. that one day to be looked upon.

i didn’t know though — i’m african, from the gutter. we didn’t have water or electricity before 2010. one day…

then people i knew started having children. a person, full body, bones and blood. and in my head, i wondered — what is sex, really? i’m twenty-eight, only twenty-eight.

it should’ve ended there, but i keep meeting people — a singer, a doctor, a teacher, a businessman, a makeup artist. and every time one asks me out, i wonder if i’ll go back to dreaming…

one day, i will also be someone.

i’m not a beggar. i never wanted to beg, but my lover changed midway.

suddenly, his days became things i had to chase just to know about.

my voice—one that never went out naked—has now grown thick skin
just to survive the shame of going unanswered.

this is from a man who, before, a moment after my blink,
wanted to know how to stop the world from ending.

i don’t miss those days, i can’t.
they’re pictures i can only learn from now—drawing them, or letting them burn.

i more than want to close my eyes
and beat my heart black and blue.

how dare it, how dare i, long for a person
who isn’t the same anymore?

but i have a captivated mind.
it houses memories, builds feelings off of things
that no longer belong to here, now—things that have passed.

i’m not a beggar, though. i only fell in love.

the many times i wanted stupid to leave me. my man left me. he can’t be my man. so that man left me.

but really, it isn’t leaving, if the inside of his house never knew my touch.

it’s like, if i wanted to walk to town, and it’s hot outside, but i want to prove myself worthy of winning the lottery jackpot. in any case, a lazy person’s thinking.

yet, i want to keep the kisses he gave to myself, a torture chamber i’ll distort. “i felt weak from his lips on mine, as though i would move to the moon tomorrow…” that kind of lying. it makes me sweat.

through all this ramble, let me say, if love doesn’t come dressed in a mole by the left eye, why should my left eye cry for that temp?

so, there’s room for growth. room to love a man younger than me. not my brother. that man who will win me over before i undress.

selfish must have had a name in the past—the starving child, the struggling artist, the twenty-year-old curious about sex, or maybe just the world where people killed each other, calling god differently in their languages.

this is the fault of the world. and still—I happen to think blue eyes are attractive, money keeps rewriting scripture, and there is always space for the faces i never want to see again.

selfish keeps me rooted in a decade already gone, while my best friend is married with a child.

i won’t lie—I hate winter, yet i never like to show my skin.

there’s an ugly impression of me mirrored in the eyes of my caucasian lovers, as if god had glanced away and the other side of the world was left unblessed.

tell me, jesus, i have kept my heart pressed tight to the burn of my expectations, yet i am still neglected—by mediocrity, by the emptiness of my pockets patting for coins from a boy ten years younger.

if selfish has a name, let me wear it typical: please, my boyfriend needs a kiss, could you turn off the camera?

but no, i am not in love. it just so happens i am getting married soon.

lately, i’m in a bitter struggle with this future i want. it doesn’t want me on good days, teases me on bad days, but never lets me off the hook. a bad fate.

it’s a cliché story. i was smart as a child, my brown eyes remembered by others. i lived an ordinary life — clothes that fit, school like everyone else. a really cliché story. if only i knew my mother’s language as well as she knew how to name me.

i’ve told myself a thousand times i want for nothing. still, to drive would be good — forget owning a car. but who made me love pretty things? all pretty, charming things. they’re choosy, noisy, they steal my sleep, blur the accent i picked up on the street.

i forgot where i came from, a dirty place — mud and shacks, candlelight on good days. but that’s wrong too. the place was never dirty. it’s just that the pretty things i met along the way made my nose tilt upward, and now i don’t fit anymore. i’ve gained weight.

or maybe i just dreamed too hard, planned too real, puffed up my chest until my feet no longer belonged to me. that future, the one that once held my hand, walked out. we’re still married on paper, but the divorce is already written.