Ramblings

The Call

It has been four days after;

Idly I sit by my phones

Waiting for the sound of Big Sean

To announce a caller.

Anxious for the beep of a message

Not from the Network

Offering promises of elusive bonuses

But from him.

To tell me he was shy

And he missed me mildly.

To assure me that I'm not mad.

All the while wondering

"What is wrong with me?" 

It has been four days since the first kiss,

Four days since I last felt real butterflies,

Four days since anyone dared,

Four days since a burning of that kind.

Four days since... After a year.

In my mind I have played

The tape of a conversation.

Rehearsed the first words I shall utter

Speculating whether to be coy or nah

To display anger or nonchalance.

Still unsure as to my preferred reactions

I have prepared myself to sound

Like a lady

To pretend I have been unexpectant

Like I'm not lonely.

All the while ignoring reality,

Willing myself to believe

To have faith

And hold a shred of hope

That it wasn't just it

And that he is not like all of you.

Not a disappointment

Like the past attempts.

Praying he isn't another reason

To not try anymore. 

Nkem 

Fat Barbie

My biggest disgrace is my body. Sadly, I have no choice but to lug it around all day and take it wherever I have to go to. My size 16 body which some people may not call fat and would even go as far as referring me to a bigger girl would say you are just fine, but they don’t see those models in the magazines that I love to read soo much, how none of those models is a waist line not bigger than a size 4 and even the size 6 ones don’t reach the acceptable level talk less of size 16 me. They don’t see the laughing eyes of the trim figured girls, who keep taunting me with their looks of disapproval and pity because of the size of my waist line.
I know I have to remind myself that I’m beautiful and that the body is just a house that should contain a beautiful soul, but my slender alter ego tells me “girl, that really cute boy won’t see your soul first.” My protruding belly won’t stop laughing at me when I try to suck her in before a mirror. She says ‘you fool, you have made me ugly and you better live with it”

The adverts all talk about getting that trim figure and what to and not eat and how many times a day I ought to exercise, in those adverts all I see are a bunch of slender girls who don’t eat or even need to do those routines. I have tried that but the results are still not okay for the models of Vogue and society at large. Now to compound matters there’s this one boy who is like a calorie calculator who keeps calculating all the calories on any plate of food he sees me with. My mother’s nagging and brother’s taunting calling me ugly not because my face lacks the golden ratio but because I don’t have the body for a bikini, drive me mad, the word ugly hitting my ears and back like whips make me weak and I’m tired because I realize that nobody would really want to walk up to the fat girl and say “hi’ only if he is drunk or has blurred vision.
How many times have I gone to the pharmacy to ask for diet pills or laxatives? How many times have I kneeled before the toilet bowl and didn’t have the courage or will to stick my fingers in? The first love of my life; food is now my biggest enemy because I can’t order the fat in those delicious meals to go to my butt or breast, like curses they reside in my back, thighs and stomach making me look like a sack of potatoes. The other day my mother who always has my best interest in her mind, saw a picture of me where I had lost some weight and says to me, “see how beautiful you look, only if you could maintain this figure” and I thought of the big girls I knew who are very beautiful, but people won’t look beyond their weights and just dismiss their faces and only think of them as fats girls.
This is not to spite slender girls or accuse them of having incredible figures, but to tell the bigger girls who don’t have flat stomachs or a thigh gap, that they are beautiful and if anybody can’t see that then such people have problems bigger than their weights.
Growing up I rarely remember seeing a fat Barbie, they were all pretty thin, full-haired dolls, but I had a fat Barbie, weird, I had one, she didn’t even have any hair on her head, but the fun thing about that doll was she lasted longer than the other thin ones; I always lost their parts quickly. Thinking about her now I wonder why I only ever saw one and I know why. Little girls like pretty dolls, a fat doll can’t be considered pretty. One day on Yahoo news I read about a doll that rejects food, imagine an anorexic doll. I miss my fat Barbie, she was beautiful to me.
@nkemoyaghire

Why can’t I hate you?

The first time I met you I felt wariness because society, etiquette and common sense dictate that when you meet a stranger you treat them with caution and be suspicious of their every word and actions but I decided to ignore the forces that control human thinking and under two days you had spun a web over me and I was all yours. I became soo hooked on you, my addiction to you was worse than your addiction to weed. You were all I wanted for now and forever, but in this cocoon of love I felt for you I could see cracks, cracks created by the wind blown from the words of friends; words as strong as hurricanes and typhoons warning me of who you were and what you were capable of were ignored by my stubbornness, stubbornness that held fast to the notion that they didn’t know you and that I knew you better than they could ever imagine, but once again I kept forgetting that you never really talked about yourself and I couldn’t write a one page essay of who you really are. I could only see the purity of the love I believed you felt towards me, a purity that was tainted by the looming presence of a girlfriend you never felt important to mention.

Time has gone by and I still want you more than Martin Luther wanted non segregation, the images in my head of us together was a veil that covered the truth that was glaring in my face; you didn’t love me and despite your words said it your actions never relayed it. Regardless of all the ways I have tried to hate you, your boyish smiles and devilish looks come back to me, hitting me with the force of a thousand armies and my defences against you crumble, defences fortified by the greatest agent of hate; anger followed by her sister disappointment and whenever this happens I have to pinch myself and remember that I dare not dream about you, try to remember what you smell like or what you would do about a particular situation, remember that me needing you is as unhealthy as me getting drunk every night and sometimes spending time with you feels like I’m drunk. I have to always remember that no matter how hard I try I will never be your other half.
The withdrawal symptoms I suffer as a result of your absence make me weak; the tears purging my heart and the sobbing makes my throat sore. Red eyes and tissue paper are my new best friends and as I slowly get better, which seems to be taking longer than forever I have come to the realisation that my love for you cannot exist and even though I am yet to agree with this; there are a lot of reasons for why I would love you and listing them would take me longer than I want to, but the one reason why I can’t love you is beyond my reach and I am yet to know it. Hopefully at the end of my tearful journey it would be evident, till then I will still love you.
"Every time you touch me and say you love me, I get a little bit breathless I shouldn't want it but it's you" Grande.
@Nkemoyaghire

Fresh Soup

He gets home. She is tired but managed to prepare dinner; a dish of Egusi and Pounded yam. He looks really hungry. She asks “will you eat now or after your bath?” He replies with a question and a sneer on his face “Is the soup fresh?” *Pause. "Is the soup fresh?"

*Deep breathe. I'm very tired, you don't ask about my day, you don't ask how I feel, and you don't even lift up your eyes to look at my bone weary face, the least you can do like a status quo husband is greet me with an endearment but those are to difficult for your ego to form. I go out and look for a means to support you making sure we never have to beg for anything, I cater for the children we both have, I clean them, feed them, try to instil a good character and the fear of God in them because the society has stated that as a woman that duty lies solely on my shoulders. You ask "Is the soup fresh?

The house we both invested in is kept by my keen eyes and my feminine touch is its nucleus. Every time you need me I'm right there and I reply to your calls with an urgency that words can't explain and yet you ask "Is the soup fresh?" In prayers you are the first thing that pops up in my list, cracked are my knees in intercession for you, my tears never ending when asking for the  blessings of God to rain upon you and you ask "Is the soup fresh?" The money for the soup that I heated up for you was from my purse and you dare ask "Is the soup fresh?"

Deep down in my heart, the saddest form of laughter I can muster rises but remains in me, for tradition commands that I submit to my husband in all areas and never rear my head up in defiance against him. I dare not disobey, lest I try to know what my punishment would be. So I reply in the gentlest manner “No, it isn't fresh” and ask “what soup do you want?”

"Because I am female I am expected to aspire to marriage." Adichie.

@nkemoyaghire

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