What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky

by Lesley Nneka Arimah

She grew up the eldest daughter of too many and knows how the needs of a child can drown out a girl’s dreams.

At such moments I became my father’s daughter, a confounding creature who had no doubt inherited a vein of insanity from one of his yeye ancestors.

What I hadn’t expected were the boys who ran behind her during recess and lifted up her skirt, as though my actions had given them permission, as though because they had seen her bare breast they were entitled to the rest. It was a boyish expectation most would not outgrow even after they became men.

He does not yet wonder where she gets this, this streak of fire. He only knows that it keeps the wolves of the world at bay and he must never let it die out.

The secret of it settled a cloak of guilt on me I will wear for the rest of my life.

If she was to mother a child, to mute and subdue and fold away parts of herself, the child had to be perfect.

Women like her had to form their children out of sturdier, more practical material if they were to withstand the dents and scrapes that came with a life like hers.

My daughter needs help, not to be help,

There was only so much a mother could ask a daughter to bear before that bond became bondage.

Because the consequences of disrespecting a man like Dickson are always disproportionate to the sin. A grenade in retaliation for a slap. A world undone for a girl’s mistake.

“If you can’t please the gods, trick them.”

they forgot that they’d had a past before this grief removed everything from inside of them.

Girls with fire in their bellies will be forced to drink from a well of correction till the flames die out.