If we lived in another world. A different place. Where the sky was purple. Where clouds had flamingo legs that walked gently on water. Where the ground floated up in the sky. Where we had gigantic turtle shells as houses.
I would write a song about the first person I loved. Truly loved. I would write that it was a girl. A girl I first noticed in JSS3, even though we’d been in the same class since JSS1. It happened on the day our English teacher, Mr. Boniface, asked the class to nominate talented students for a drama contest with a rival school. Her name was summoned in a chorus from the row by the window. The feelers row. A word we invented before baddies became a thing. I remember thinking that she was so bright and beautiful. Even though she had a bean-shaped head and walked like a proud boy.
I would write about how my feelings nurtured themselves. Slowly, like a seed planted in rich soil that learned how to grow by building a web of roots under the ground. Its first web was plain curiosity. Stealing glances at a row I never cared about before to see what she was doing. Observing her friends, studying them, trying to befriend them. Even though I was an oaf, too shy to even develop a walking step that freed my stiff back or made my hands swing freely by my sides.
I would write about the moment when curiosity turned to obsession. When it created an atomic bomb with a timer that rested in my chest and vaporized me every time I spent more than ten seconds within her proximity. I would write about the happy dreams. Dreams that made me include spend the day with Amaris in my plans and prayers. The feverish diary entries that began with Amaris smiled at me today. How the influx of her name became a chant. An absurdity and an abuse of language all at once. The name Saris, which I invented to survive the excess, so I could write about the same person, in the same place, in two versions.
I would write about how badly I wanted to develop a connection with her. How badly I wanted to call her Mario, the way others did, so she would gallivant like a proud boy in front of me, releasing her high-pitched babyish giggles. I would write about the frustration this desire created. The kind that glued my legs to a crossroads, wanting her to relate with me the way she did with others, yet becoming mute and sweaty when she tried to talk to me. Unable to look her in the eyes, even when she wasn’t looking at me.
I would write about how I tried to solve this problem by forcing her to become a bookworm. One that specialized in reading letters written by me. I would write about how empty those letters were, filled with polite phrases like happy reading or take care. Even though what I really wanted was to declutter my belly onto paper, to let her know how badly she unraveled me. I would write about the letters where I spoke about Lil Wayne and his preferences in sex positions. My pathetic attempt to become cool for her, even though all I truly wanted was to argue and gush about characters in the books I’d read yesterday.
I would write about the simultaneous beatings I got from my mom and aunt for sneaking out to go to hers. Not to talk, but to sit quietly and watch her exist in her element. I would write about how I crammed her phone number, her house address, the number of people in her family. How I collected every piece of information with her name attached to it. Even though none of it ever came directly from her mouth.
I would write about how ugly I cried in the middle of a group conversation, unashamed, the day I realized that she preferred someone else. Someone less awkward and timid than I was. I would write about how difficult it was for my stupid heart to get the message, how I kept watching her till we both graduated. How I kept coming back to her social media pages, revisiting the letters she’d managed to respond to, the memories I’d stored in special places in my chest. All through university.
If I had a say in the song’s ending, I would write that it was the greatest love story I’d ever known. Because deep in its absurdity lay feelings so pure and heavy. Like being stuck in an electrifyingly happy dream.
A dream that ends when I open my eyes to find the sky blue and endless above me. To find that the sea has no clouds with flamingo legs, and the ground stands firm under my feet. Dry. Dull. Dusty.
So since we are in this world, if I am asked to write a love song, I would write about Olisa. Who was too shy to walk up to me after church services on Sundays, even though he was way older and had been watching me for up to a year. I would write about the first conversation we had during a Christmas party my mother forced me to attend because I was getting too old to keep my nose buried in books. I remember feeling struck with admiration by the way he described the world and his adventures in it. I would write about his easy laughter and free spirit. How eager he was to know me, how impressed he was that I read so much. I would write about how drawn I was to his audacity. The way he placed the world in his palm and navigated it like Captain Hook. How it showed me a version of myself I would never become.
I would write about the first time I saw his mother. How I desperately wanted to impress her. I spent the night before practicing my top-tier recipes, in case she asked me to cook during our first meeting. I would write about the nod I got from his brothers and uncles for being fresh and untouched. An Ezigbo Nwanyi. I would write about the first night I lay in bed with him, with my eyes shut tightly while blood flowed through the sheets. How I cried because it was never what I imagined. It had no delirium. Not like that night in university when I slipped and let another girl touch me. I would write about how easy it was to fake a moan and master what he liked so he wouldn’t notice the blandness on my face while he moved.
I would write about our wedding day. How my father blessed me for blessing him with a good in-law. How my mother touched my heavy belly and called me a blessing. How happiness erupted all around me like a volcano that never touched me. I would write about how dignifying it felt to be a neck again. One who absorbed after the head had eaten and drunk to its fill. I would write about how perplexed I was the day I pushed my daughter out of me. How I gave her a name I’d never thought deeply about.
I would write about prolonged sessions with Pastor James and holy water, where I cried and begged him to exhume the spirit of lust from me. Because the night before, I’d snuck into the bathroom after a session with Olisa to watch two women touch themselves so I could get some release. I would write about the acceptance that settled as I aged. How the life I thought was mine belonged to everyone else. How it became important to pour myself into my daughter, so she might grow to be an Ezigbo Nwanyi like me.
I would write about my desire to write love songs that attach me to happiness.
But nobody ever asked me about love or a story, so I have no song. I am, instead, confronted by the many clothes I must put on daily. Clothes that tell me who I should be. Actions I have learned to perform with stoic poise. But today, when the cloth for the day covered my body like a waterfall, I could not shake the feeling that came with it.
The feeling settled deep in my chest. Familiar. Heavy. Déjà vu. Not the kind that comes with pictures. The kind that wraps your nerves in a bow, that makes your body remember before your mind can. The tightening in my chest. The recognition of something already lived. Something I had been through before. In another time. In another life. Under a purple sky.
It lay in the words of Mr. Faruk, my daughter’s principal, who called me to come to school at once.
“She’s been suspended,” he said.
“Why?” I asked, my mind leaping to a million frightening possibilities.
“The bathroom,” he said gently. “We caught her kissing another girl.”
Dumebi Favour is a Nigerian writer whose works explore culture, identity, memory and the emotional interior of complex human experiences. She writes both fiction and non-fiction. She currently writes for Afrique Noire magazine. Her short stories and poems have appeared on platforms like Tales and Whispers, Kalahari Review and Farafina blog.
Featured image by Cole Keister.
