I scoot away a little bit and pull at the black band on my wrist. My ears are as hot as sizzling oil.
"So i listened to J.Cole." he says out of no-where.
"And?"
"He's not bad at all." he admits, albeit reluctantly.
"Not bad at all." I exclaim
"He's so dope." We say at the same time and grin at each other.
"But i know you still won't admit he's better than Eminem, right?"
"Uh no. Capital letter N O. They are two entirey different people."
I pretend to perceive a bad smell in the air and sniff at it. "What's that smell?"
"What smell, " he asks befuddled " i can't perceive anything."
"Aha," i exclaim "i know that smell, it's the stench of defeat."
He laughs, full teeth on display. There's a valley between the end of his nose and the top of his upper lip that i could lay my lie down for. I didn't realize that philtrums could be so attractive before now. Maybe they aren't. M
She kissed me then. No—she kisses me then, with her face sandwiched between my hands. The present is a better way to describe it.I am here in the now, in the present, not unsure of tomorrow, or trying to imagine i am Eragon or Frodo or Okonkwo. Her face is pressed against mine, so hard that it's a surprise her forehead doesn't melt into mine. Her fingers are soft against my nape. For once Deziri is speechless and i can't feel that ever-present, ever-terrified eight year old part of me lurking, trying to find an escape route from the present.For once the world i'm in is perfect enough.She made that world. She is that world.
He tastes just as pretty as he looks, like an undiscovered spice; untouched and exotic. My nose seems to like being so close to him too, it brushes against the end of his small button nose as if it's trying to say 'hi'. The love stories and the mills and boons tell you that people melt into a kiss, that your skin sizzles of your bones inflamed by passion.I don't know about that. I didn't melt. I didn't 'catch fire' as they always describe it.Nah. I just disintegrated. Disintegrated into tiny vulnerable bits that only exist in this world, tiny bits that only exist in these moments.I am nothingness. I am like the swooning wind, or like a hiking rivulet running its course through a green jungle. I am free. Floating in nothingness.I could exist only in this moment and be contented forever.Dripping love, bleeding love.If a second were
Pascal always walks us to the junction after we visit. Outside is an after-rain kind of dark. The heavens are a thick blue canvas spread so low as to make rooftops resemble scraps of paper collaged into a humongous mosaic. Brown puddles dot the streets; some barely the size of a grown man's foot, others the width of a small lagoon. We have to dodge and leap over their welcoming watery arms, like Another time Sis. The barbing Saloon less than ten feet away from Pascal's is jamming up Olamide's issa goal on its speaker and the thing is so noisy that the provisions store next to it is practically shivering, tremors from the stereo's bass pulsate up and down its walls. It reminds me of another day, acutely similar to this one, with a little less downpour and clearer clouds. We were doing our usually walk home at turtle pace when the world started to scream."Goal!"From taxi cabs, stalls, bars; Gee even the mechanic at the corner of the road
Perhaps i was feeling different, weightless and fuller at the same time, and i needed someone to talk to about it. Maybe a part of me wanted approval. Maybe it's just that i talk more than i should. Either way, i tell Aunty seedy about Chideziri. We are catching up on Funke Akindele's Jennifa's diary when i do so. (Swears that lady is our very own Taraji p. Henson.)I spend time I should be laughing my bowels out to mould and remould sentences in my head to fit what i need to say; I was never much good at the Fine arts though, so it comes out really far from perfection.I swear, there's really no perfect way to tell someone you've idolized your whole life such stuff.Boys make everything more complicated like that.So i blurt out my truth, raw and uncovered. It burns coming up, but when it does come up i feel like a boulder i didnt even know was on my shoulders got craned off. It's only natural, i think. Up until now
There are countless silences, all noisy in their own manner.There is the silence that speaks when spoken to, and broods when not.There's the silence that walks with weariness in its gait, the one that fatigue has robbed of it's virtue.There's the silence that bellows when anger smithed words will not suffice. The silence that seethes and bristles at the back of our minds.Then there is the silence that visits us when words are not enough to say. When the world is but a forgotten stepping stone, and we are all that matters. When i am listening to the tune of your voice plucking the strings of my heart and all i can breathe is you.I like that comfortable quiet that sneaks in upon us in a murmur of solace, that quiet that requires two to make. That is my favourite kind silence.I found that silences talk, and that they are loud, and opinionated.I learnt that silences say more than words ever speak
First thing i do in every morning is turn on my data connection.Yes, i know, it's phone addiction, you will damage your eyes, the sensitive rays from a phone are capable of causing cancer—bla-bla-bla—Keep the advice to yourself.It's Friday again. TGIF. But Mumsi still isn't back from her trip. It's unlike her, to travel suddenly then over stay on top of that. But i would be telling you lies, if i say I'm not enjoying the bit of peace I've gotten so far. I sleep a bit while letting the status' on my WhatsApp load. Earlier, in the middle of the night when I had to wake up to take a piss, it was like i was at the north-pole, freezing myself out in a singlet and an old pair of jeans, Tobi cut at the knees with a sharp pair of scissors. Now I'm in full cold-weather-proof-armour. I'm talking about beanie, hoodie, jean trousers, and stocking-ed feet. I snuggle into the now warm folds of my tussled sheets and enjoy the last streaks of night.Ma
Trouble is not anosmic as you would think. Trouble stinks, with a fetid aroma like sulphur roasting a corpse. My nose has been trained to seek it out since the day a lorry tried to put its metal rib cage straight through Mum and I, since the day i woke up in n a hospital bed with an inferno in my lungs and lead flowing in my veins.I got to school late, as usual. If i was a junior i believe my life right at this point will be one full of frog jumps and kneeling out in the open for hours, the sun in my face. I've been there and done all of that, enough for five life times. I waltz into the class like a princess from some fairy tale story.Welcome to the benefits of being in SS3. You are a student and at the same time, you're not. Check this; you could put a javelin through the white marker board and get a pat on the shoulder as punishment, but God help you, you dare staff. You'll be handled like a terrorist. No lie. And trust when i say it's neither a Queen'
Guyyyy, this gbedu dey mad gahn.Oh, sorry. Sometimes i forget you aren't from PH city. I suppose I have to explain that now eh. I will break it down to you like the learned bilinguist i am.That was pidgin for: This. party. is. hot.And pay attention to "hot" there, 'cause it's not just any type of hot. It's broiling-blazing-roasting-flaming-baking-steamy hot—igneous hot. The kind of skin blistering fire i felt on my hands after i assisted Mumsi in rinsing those shiny chili peppers she grinds to add to the moi-moi to give it colour. Yeah, that's about it. I've never been to an actual party, but any three year old will know a-making-sense-party when he sees one.Ok, pause. Hold that thought for a second, would you.It wouldn't be the whole truth if i told you that. I've been to one or two decent parties—if I'm being completely sincere—where we all had to wear conical party hats and drink lukewarm Capr