Hush Hush

You see in an average Nigerian home there’s always this hush hush policy. Don’t say more than you are asked to outsiders. By outsiders I mean your cousins, Aunties, Uncles e.t.c. For me the hush hush policy is something I grew up with so it was no shock when I was about to leave the country I was asked not to tell anyone until I had left. Admission, Visa, Travel…..everything was done with the hush hush policy until I had left the country especially with my extended family. My close friends of course knew I was leaving I even did count down with them but most of my relatives had no clue. Hush hush policy. 

I didn’t know why but I sure as hell wasn’t going to risk telling everybody against my parents’ orders then have African magic happen to me. Have you ever watched one of those movies where something big is about to happen to somebody then he tells everyone and then one of his relative does something fetish and everything comes crumbling? Yes, that one. I was not going to risk that happening to me.

Also at that period, my favorite cousin was sick. Her name was Chigozie. I used to call her Chigo. She knew I had traveled and she would call me from her sick bed once in a while to check up on me. She was a sweet soul and she genuinely loved me.  She was one of the few if not the only that actually gave a fuck about me and my siblings. She was also the only one that visits and let me visit her in her school.  

I remember growing up with her and during her visits we would both play different games. My favorite was the one where she would pretend to be a superstar and I would be a TV presenter who interviews her and also the one were she would act out my movie scenes. She was an aspiring actress and I have always loved writing so I would write out scenes for her to act and even though she was older than me she would let me correct her acting. I was like the director and scriptwriter. Just me, Chigo and my bedroom made movies. We were all we needed.

I traveled back to Nigeria for summer break 6 months later and what can I say, I spent the holiday chasing boys, getting my heart broken and traveling in and out of Abuja visiting my best friends and living the hush hush policy. I had to stay away from the village and keep my stay quiet and hurry back to school so no one can tie me down in Nigeria. Right now it sounds all confusing but except you know this policy very well you might not understand it. I don’t even think I understand it. But anyways, I hushed my way through the holiday and started making plans to travel back to school without going to the village. I just expected she would be fine you know. She had all my Aunties, Uncles and my grandma there, plenty relatives suggesting treatments and remedies. I thought she had everyone she needed.  Everyone I wasn’t supposed to show myself to so they won’t know I was in the country. And I was so scared. I was very scared of anything happening to me. I stayed away from the village.

Before my departure, I traveled to Enugu to visit one of my best friends Mary and even though it was now a two-hour drive to go see my cousin, I took the 8-hour drive back to Abuja telling myself next time. Next time! 

A day or two after I got back to Abuja, my mum got a call that Chigo had passed on. She didn’t wait for my next time. She died. She died. Cause of sickness still a mystery to everyone but hush hush policy demands that when there’s a mystery you run and I did. I ran so well that I never got to say goodbye. This month of September makes it two years since Chigo passed on and I really wish I can ever tell her how sorry I am that I never visited. I am sorry that she died probably thinking am one of the people who deserted her in her sickness.

Chigo, I was just scared.

For those of you that know about the hush hush policy in Nigerian homes, who do you think is to blame? Do you think our parents are just overly paranoid and no one is out to hurt us from the village or you blame those villagers who won’t just let us play around and eat around without the fear of being poisoned or being trailed with fetish powers? 

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Stay with me...

A few days ago, I was really broke well am always broke but this one was a special kind cause it was my birthday as well and though it was a family tradition to receive birthday money, this year I didn’t. I just decided my parents have either concluded this is the year they stop pampering me or maybe this Buhari regime has brought a change in the tradition but well me I no con send I ate my noodles and went to sleep hoping to eat the pizza I was craving in my sleep.

I woke up late that afternoon even for dream sef I still broke so there was no pizza for me and then I decided to have my bath. I do this stupid thing when am extremely sad of putting on the shower and seating on the bath basin then I pretend its rainfall. Sometimes I cry while other times I just think of the girl who emailed me and said I made her day and other times I write (in my head of course). This particular day wasn’t bad or good or anything I was just extremely broke so I sat down there and everything sat with me. No thoughts, no nothing just water drops falling down on me. As I was there doing nothing I remembered the first time I bathed in a shower. I am not so sure which year but it should be around 2005. It was in church. My father being a crazy amazing man (the root of all my madness) had set a time and whoever wasn’t in the car by that time would be left behind and if you are left behind that is 12 strokes of the cane, so me and my ajayi sef that never sticks to time kept merry-go-rounding until it was time. Mehn nobody told me I packed all my kaya and flew into the car half ready. So when we got to the church the bathroom was my first point of call. Na there I con notice say the shower was working. It was like Christmas for me. I kuku pull all my clothes and stayed there playing under water with my follow follow younger sister and the thing that saved our asses was that my mum didn’t go to Sunday school to check up on us else hmmm the kin beating my dad would have given us immediately we got home ehhn would have changed our destinies I even for no get this blog sef.

So like play like play it became a ritual, every Sunday before or after church sometimes both my siblings and I will go and play under shower. Toh no be we kill abacha. We had prepared a sad story of how we don’t have shower in our house that was why we always skip church activities to go and play just in case my dad ever got us and luckily he never did.

Year after year, Aunty grow breast, enter boarding school then repented. I come back house they form big girl that’s how my shower escapades stopped.

I still remember the day my mum called me in school to inform me they renovate the house and we now have shower in our bathroom and few days later she called again to say one of my sibling had pneumonia because they all were constantly playing under the shower morning till night even when it’s cold. You go blame them? For once they get to enjoy ajebutter life.

But fast forward to 2016 aunty dey school abroad. Aunty don dey wear bra sef. Aunty dey use shower on a daily.

I thank God for the talent to make myself laugh because on days like this, days like this as written by the talented Rudy Francisco “when all I have are piles of dirty clothes laughter becomes my only clean shirt”. I laughed until I had enough strength to pick myself up off the shower basin.

Am sure everybody has their throwback stories and most of us are surely not where we want to be yet. We still get broke somedays unable to get yourself pizza. We still listen to our parents in silence as they complain bitterly about the economy on the other end of the phone and at that moment you can picture exactly how their face looks. You can see the wrinkles that has gathered on their face. You can see the sadness in their eyes and the only thing you feel is powerless. You hear the heavy sigh that comes after the complains and the “God will see us through” speech but you don’t believe that do you? You believe you should do something and not wait for God who is probably too busy helping Khloe Kardashian lose weight and then quietly they ask you “how are you? How is studies? Hope you still have money with you?” to which you reply “Fine, fine. Yes” But that’s a lie isn’t it. You are not fine. There’s a course you don’t understand and might withdraw from after the midterms. The money finished two weeks ago did they even calculate the dollar equivalent before they sent and assume it will be enough for you till Jesus arrives? You are not fine but you say you are. Isn’t it?

Me too. Am not fine either. We are not fine together.

Some days are harder than some but always remember it doesn’t matter if you boil the egg or you intend to fry it, you need to break the shell to get out the goodness. So you stay with me okay?

No one ever promised us the journey will be easy but each morning when I wake, no matter how bad it looks I am grateful that this isn’t the destination. We are still moving. We are still growing and we are closer with each step. So stay with me. Okay? Stay here with me. Don’t go back, don’t lay on the floor when you fall, don’t give up let’s keep growing, let’s keep moving. We have a world to rule. The world is waiting.

We will get there.

We will get there.

Stay with me.

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Dear lesbian bestfriend

Dear lesbian best friend,

I remember the first day you told me you kissed a girl for the first time. It was our first year in college. Her name was Leah. I remember you said it felt like your lips was a love note and she was reading it carefully. While explaining, you did that thing with your eyes where you would roll them and smile at the same time then look away blushing and then you would look back slowly, biting your lower lip.

I always said that was my favorite sight of you and you only do it when you are extremely happy. I didn’t understand how you felt but being a big fan of Glee I thought you cool. Maybe you and Leah were going to be my very own Santana and Brittany.

I remember the next day at school, you pulled me to the restroom and locked the door behind us then checked if anyone was inside. I remember we were alone and I also remember what happened after you held my hand with tears in your eyes and made me promise not to tell anyone how you kissed a girl in fact we were never to talk about it again.

For a while we acted like nothing happened. I didn’t meet Leah and I didn’t ask either but I really wanted to.

Weeks after that I watched you and your boyfriend Ben act like the peach perfect couple everybody thought you were until the night you knocked on my door at 3 a.m. You had your heart on your hands, sad and crying. You said “I am tired” severally while crying and after that you fell asleep in my arms and I laid you on my bed. Remember how you hated the idea of me living alone? Well living alone came in handy that night because you cried so long and so loud that I was grateful I didn’t have a roommate.

I know how much you love pancakes so I woke up a few minutes past 10 and made them for you and served you breakfast on bed. You laughed at my effort and said “Are you hitting on me?”

You were laughing and that was all I wanted.

That day you told me “I am gay” then you cried a little more.

You cried like it was the worst thing that could have happened to you and I didn’t know anything smart to say to you so I just held you and stayed silent praying you don’t confuse my silence for something else.

You told me about the night you kissed Leah. She called you by midnight crying. Her boyfriend had beaten her up because of you. You were scared. She was scared. And I was….well I didn’t know what had happened.

I remember texting you later when you had left and I told you this changes nothing, you are still the most beautiful human I have met and I will always be on your team. And you simply replied “I heart you”. I never told you that after your message I cried and prayed for you. I prayed for strength for you because from several movies I had seen, I knew you would need it.

I have watched you be single for two years now since you left Ben. I have listened to your daydreams about the perfect girl. I have watched you smile when you talk about your fantasies and also watch the smile fade away from your face slowly. You always said things don’t happen in real life like it does in the movies. We are blacks. We are Africans. We are Nigerians. We are not wired to be gay.

You never call yourself gay except with me. I just want to tell you that you will be happy. At the end of it all, you will be happy. I won’t let you not be happy. I won’t let you marry a man out of obligations. I will run with you if we must but you will be happy.

And when I have a daughter of my own, I hope she has a friend like you. I would love it if she’s like you. We would both love acceptance into her blood and it will flow all over her being.

I know sometimes you feel alone especially those Friday nights when every other person has something to do or somewhere to go to with their lovers and you stay up watching Greys anatomy over and over again like it’s the first time you have seen that episode or season.

I know sometimes you crave intimacy and I can’t help. I would say kiss me but you are not my type. Grow a dick and maybe just maybe we will talk.

Listen to Dear Ex-lover by Jasmine Man. It’s a poetry that made me think about you.

I have a heart believe that what you are looking for is looking for you.

I hope you find her soon. I hope she finds you soon. Am rooting for you guys.

You are important. You are gay and it’s okay.

I love you.

 Have mercy upon me,

For yesterday my love laid on her bed waiting for me

But my body was on his bed.

I opened my legs and let him in and wait for that loud cry of his peak

For in your loving kindness,

You have given love with breasts

Who was waiting with food on her table

Wearing all her smiles as garment

Her arms waiting to hold my breaking soul as she helps me wash him off my skin

We drank and cried to our forbidden love.

The multitude of thy tender mercies,

For though he had my body and I his name,

She was tattooed on my heart

And when I lied about last night this morning

I wonder how he didn’t taste her on my lips.

-          Amarion

Picture above - Zanele-Muholi

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