By Mfon James:
What is love, if it doesn’t fall under the armpit of marriage?
What is marriage if it doesn’t live under the therapy of romance?
Weeks ago, I had begun to find solace in front of mirrors, studying my lumpy face from side to side, wondering what you would vomit to justify your actions.
These days, the taste of water running down my throat and settling in my empty stomach satisfies me more than the touch of your skin. When I told my parents you treat me like a sack abandoned at a dumpsite, they opened their mouths as if I had pronounced their death sentences.
Their facial expression as I spoke became deflowered with shame and pity. Language perhaps failed them as they sat there with silent concern, listening to my confession, they too, wondering how someone so innocent could command such pain.
Yesterday, we were best friends, resting in the open sky, drenched in the full moon, imagining, we had two-energy-filled children dragging toy cars while we snuggled in each other’s arms.
Everything was fine until I overstayed my welcome and you started swinging your fist.
Sometimes, I wondered how I have endured this much in silence hoping you’d stick to your words when you say
“but baby I am sorry, it is the devil”.
I waited patiently for a cure, chained by the ring you snugged round my finger. I spent so much time loving you and trying to fix you that I became an antidote to pollinate your poisonous evil.
Since the last time you hit me, my mind has become an unwavering battleground of hacking thoughts. One minute, everything seems to make sense, and the other minute I’m running from your toxic presence, I jump off a bridge but your body is plunged beneath the river, waiting to swallow me.
I wash myself to be clean of you, yet, somehow the water mirrors your image.
Ten days have gone and my period has not arrived, I’m with child.
Now, I know I need to deliver myself first before others will sit on this table of poison you’ve prepared.
By God and Christ, I pray God receives my soul and that of the seed you planted in me because unlike other scars I carry, I cannot bear to carry a son that will be anything like you.
I am near the point whereby my pains no longer hurt and, there will be no need for a funeral.
I hope this letter meets you well.
© Mfon James