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March 25 - March 30, 2019
By the end of the day, I was a queen with no pawns.
I’d always thought of babies as blobby entities, sometimes powder scented, sometimes poo scented, that I wouldn’t need to concern myself with for another decade.
When Enebeli Okwara sent his girl out in the world, he did not know what the world did to daughters. He did not know how quickly it would wick the dew off her, how she would be returned to him hollowed out, relieved of her better parts.
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.
Women should work on the men themselves, breasts a-heavin’, tears a-flowin’.
The two girls flushed and smiled with pleasure when another woman commended their handiwork (such tight lovely stitches) and wished them well. Ogechi wished them death by drowning, though not out loud.
May her days be longer than the breasts of an old mother and fuller than the stomach of a rich man.
For many the Formula was God, misunderstood for so long. They believed that it was only a matter of time before someone discovered the formula to create life, rather than to just manipulate it. But this was beyond the concerns of the teenagers, who applauded politely.
Sleep came, deep and black, a dreamless thing with no light.
She did a lot of things out of spite, the source of which she couldn’t identify—as if she’d been born resenting the world.
He didn’t seem to mind how joy had become a finite meal she begrudged seeing anyone but herself consume.
illusions. A carefree attitude that was simply carelessness. Bluntness mistaken for honesty when she was just mean.
“Papa, you know I don’t have it in me to win anyone’s favor, let alone the gods’.”
“If you can’t please the gods, trick them.”
But Thomas was moved and thanked her for trusting him, and she said, “You’re welcome,” in that cutesy, girlish way she knew he would like, even though what she really wanted was for him to stop being such a gentleman and fuck her silly.
The problem with those who don’t know real power is that they do not know real power.
What many don’t know, a secret god-mothers have kept for eternity, is that god-children are just that, children.
He married human women who bore children he suffocated as they slept, lest they leave a divine trail that led to his end. When the women grew suspicious, he abandoned them, and they would go mad or move on with their lives, slowly forgetting him as one does a god who answers no prayers.
Many a good man was lost to angry godlings who peeled his skin away, searching for the god that might be hidden inside.
Blame, so like a god itself, shadowed her, occupied her bed like a lover, whispered to her like a dearest friend.
I would go and sit with her because everyone knows how old people enjoy the company of young people. They suck at us like vampires, or wilting flowers that require the sunshine of our youth.
She always wore yellow, and she looked pretty in it. Not abandon-your-only-legitimate-child pretty, but you could see what a man would see in her.
Girls with fire in their bellies will be forced to drink from a well of correction till the flames die out.
