Saturday 10 July 2021

I FEEL YOU

 It’s the way your eyes sparkle

When you sight me

That holds your heart displayed to the world

With my name tattooed

Without a care in the world.


It’s the little beads of sweat 

That adorn your nose

Like diamonds on glass

Little drops of pleasurable tension

When you listen to me talk

Conveying interest

None can rival.


It’s not my name, it’s the way you call it

It’s not the vowels; it’s the report on my ears

Its what it does

The waves it creates

And the distinction it makes

From the hundreds of females I have known.


It’s the way I matter

The way you defer to me

The way you let me lead you

The astonishing manner you jump at my requests

The Teutonic speed between ask and do

And how my counsel is like prophecy

In your life.


It’s the way your friends look at me

The obvious evidence

Of awe, pique and green

That speaks and blares

The content of your discourses.


It’s that feminine air

That would rather go six feet 

Than lose me

Cold water on all our fights

Craze that’s glaring

Affection with a whistle

A definite package.


I feel you, well.

THE VOICE

 There he was, smiling like a fat kid who had been handed his cake fix.

Resplendently dressed, like he owned the world.
Encircling this razz-looking girl in his arms.
This had to be a joke.
The iPhone shot to her ears instantly.
The voicemail message she heard pushed her breathing up several
notches.
She launched her Whatsapp Messenger.
On his status updates were eight more pictures.
Pictures that shocked her, choked her, and triggered an instantaneous ulcer.
Was this the mom that had been sick for two weeks running?
Was this the hospital bills for his mum, the chemotherapy, the dialysis she had wired a million for?
He didnt even have the decency to block her from viewing his status updates. To unfriend her from Facebook.
He wanted her to see it.
There would be no other way to explain it.
He desired to shame her in that manner.
What did this girl have that she didn’t? Just what?
She peered through her gown to grope for any semblance of round flesh around her midsection.
She zoomed the picture to survey her chest region. Nothing more than half the size of a clenched fist.
The mad curiosity brought her to the face that owned Andrew, apparently. Hollow jaw, feline eyes, a nose that looked plastered to her face by an amateur mason. But, that smile was disarming, and did not lie. Her rage was powerless against it. She was feminine and pure, even at face value.
Not one part of her body was on display; no brown peeped out of the white covering at the places it mattered most.
Here was Andrew, smiling like he had been gifted the Burj.
The first tear snaked its way from source, and like a practiced Olympic diver, aimed for the iPad Air in her hands.
And hit home.
The heavens on her eyes opened. It rained.
‘Oluchi, you show off too much of your body on social media.’
The voice hit her hard. She looked round the room to find its owner. Brick wall.
The voice was urgent, yet had a calming effect. It informed her, and compelled her at the same time.
Could it be true? It could not be.
She considered herself bougie and psychedelic, yet decent. Besides, this was 2021.
She opened her gallery. She went to the ‘posted’ folder.
1,023 pictures.
Nothing prepared her for what the voice made her see, that day.