Speak No Evil

by Uzodinma Iweala

There is no one to speak to about my headache and my stomachache when I leave my bedroom and encounter this beautiful prison that my parents have built, when I see pictures of me on the walls and side tables that bear no resemblance to the me they cannot see. Sometimes I stare at the family that owns me and I wish I were a different person, with white skin and the ability to tell my mother and my father, especially my father, to fuck off without consequence, and sometimes I stare at the white cards of Bible verses Reverend Olumide has gifted me and think that there is still a chance to change my ways.

I feel like a star caught in the gravitational pull of a black hole, unraveling, spinning under the control of some unseen force, torn into streams of fire forever spiraling, never to be put together again.

I came because you have showed me something inside me that I can’t control, because now the world before with its rules and requirements is not enough, I want to say, but I cannot speak.

The first time we fucked it was in a parking lot in his truck. He liked to play trap music and I let him fuck me like that because I thought that’s how disgusting I was, that it should hurt, that I should be ashamed, cause I was his sickness and she was his medicine. He probably fucked her on a bed of flowers for all I know, who the fuck knows anything, but I do know I ain’t nobody’s sickness. I’ve done that. I have to go, I say, I have practice. Well go on and run then, go on and run, but me, I won’t be nobody’s sickness.

You can’t get lost here because there’s nothing to lose yourself in. These avenues, at least downtown, are not built for wanderers, and these monuments are constructed to inspire awe not contemplation. But things have changed if only to protect the desire to remain the same.