by Candice Iloh
almost
whatever I wanted
from the same store
paid for
with Daddy’s dollar bills
each time I would choose
to fill my belly with
clear fizzy liquids
to chew till my jaws grew sore
the magical magenta jugs
that were packed with
sweet dust that
turned to bubble gum
and
salty chips crisp with
orange cheddar and
speckled ranch
but the day
my favorite things
did not slide easily
into the back pocket
of my jeans
a day Daddy had allowed me
to go play with those Oyibo (white) girls
down the street, whose daddy called me a bad name
that my daddy would not repeat and I didn’t understand
the cashier’s hand stopping my wrist
mid disappearing act
the jig
way more than up
I knew I would have
to tell
one of my first lies
COLLEGE
Laying on my back in Derek’s room
seems to be the natural order of things
he doesn’t talk much
and when he opens his mouth
mocking questions always come out
like
why does everything have to be about god
and
but I didn’t ask you about Jesus
and
you a slick one huh?
and
that mouth of yours gon get you in trouble, girl
I sometimes ask what about
my mouth was trouble
why he can’t be the someone
who has time for all my questions
my body awkwardly tucked in the nook
between his chest and arm
find his answers make me tired
left feeling alone even under covers this close
knowing he likes me better laid silently
under him like this
so I figure since I’m here
and in his bed
the best thing to do with my mouth
is kiss
and kiss
and kiss
Kissing is the best thing
until it’s time to do more
and when you’re kissing
you can close your eyes
and pretend this mouth you’re kissing
belongs to the most beautiful person
in the world
that the rest of his body
is just as soft as his lips
come close to being
and that this all
actually means something
like love
like warmth
and you’ll grow into it
this thing
will be
real
I had never been in a real relationship
before Derek
the day I confirmed
I was good enough
to kiss
or hold hands
or one day lay
in his bed
was the same day
I thought we were
automatically together
Be ye not
unequally yoked
with unbelievers
for what fellowship hath
righteousness with unrighteousness
and what communion hath
light with darkness
Paul’s letter
to Corinthians
calls Derek and me
out by our names
let a woman learn
quietly with all submissiveness
I do not permit a woman to teach
or to exercise authority over a man
rather, she is
to remain quiet
the second chapter
of First Timothy
making man and god
sound the same
the heart is deceitful
above all things
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
the seventeenth chapter
of Jeremiah
a mockery of me back
in a boy’s bed lost
I have never really seen my parents together
except for the day of my
high school graduation
the idea of my father and mother
ever sharing
a house
a life
as one
is as strange
as a bat sighting
in downtown Peoria, Illinois
the place of my earliest
childhood memory and
the last time
my parents lived in the same city
after deciding
when I was one
that love
isn’t forever
SECOND GRADE
Daddy has a new girlfriend
and when we pull up to our apartment
she floats from my daddy’s car
like she’s been here before
as if her own home
in Nigeria was
just around the corner
from our street on the north side
of Chicago where we’ve lived
for a year now
she doesn’t
speak much to me
but is more than familiar
with him
When fathers get new girlfriends
there are suddenly two girls in the house
everyone walking on eggshells
cause girlfriends are new and I am not
but somehow they get to sleep with Daddy
talk to Daddy, late into the night
when I am supposed to be in bed
their voices moving in laughter or
screaming, privilege to use
mature tone but not wake
me from my sleep
Suddenly it seems like
I am always here at the wrong time
flashes of pale bare flesh flicker in sight
when Daddy’s bedroom door is cracked
her skin the soggy color of Cheerios
made me wonder how much
of its bareness she let him touch
a woman Daddy treats like a mommy
fixing her lipstick in the bathroom mirror
being seen at our dinner table
watching things on our tv
sharing in our nightly prayers
saying no in response to Daddy’s
squeeze to join in and
lead them
too
She has now been here for a week
and this night I cannot sleep
hearing something like a tussle
a fight, words flinging midair
like knives, Daddy’s girlfriend
raising her voice high
hearing names
hearing words
hearing things
we do not say
in this house
I emerge from my room, barebacked
to the dark of our dim living room
the two of them facing
each other like opponents
in a dogfight
my father hastily requests
that I go back to sleep
and I just want her to
know that I can
hear
You see that
you woke my child
with your mouth
my child doesn’t know
this kind of disrespect
my child doesn’t even know
who you are
and she definitely doesn’t
know anything about
a woman raising her voice
to a man
I have seen my mother
raise her voice to several men
called them names I cannot repeat
names you should never call someone
you love
sometimes someone you love was me
when I wasn’t being called
ungrateful and/or a wench
I was a bitch
a little girl who dressed herself like
some little boy scraping and bloodying
her knees in the street
this is when I learn
a woman who fears no man, fears
nothing—not even the marking she
will leave on her child—not even the
one on me
Adults never think
that we are listening
that us kids can hear
the things they say to
each other about us
the things they say
to us about each other
they must think we
see everything as
play
The next morning
I lay across from
the frame resting on the shelf
just as I always do
this frame holding
the only photo I own
of my mother
its colorful lines
designed like
crayon scratch
next to each other
shaping to form
the words
I LOVE MY MOMMY
I remove
the picture it holds
replace it
with the one
Daddy has gifted me
of this new woman
I will tell him
there is no reason
I will tell him
it is just a frame
any good picture
can be placed
inside it
We meet in the bathroom
when I have come to do my business
she has come to apply another shade
I slowly eyeball her plump shape while
she tells me to carry on cause I’ve said
this is my private time, tells me I have
nothing she hasn’t seen before, that
the two of us have the same things, I
should stop being so foolish and just pee, I see her
lean into the glass, press her lips together
and out as if to kiss the woman in her
reflection, draws the creamy stick of red
across the length of her mouth, back and forth
does this until it is as if she has sucked
the last of my favorite Popsicles, as if
all that is good and perfect is for her
to devour, puts the cap back on to
the same shade of lipstick my mother
wears and chuckles to herself, flings the
door open and leaves with it left wide
the doorway breeze throwing a cold slap
to my halfway naked body
before I even get the chance
to flush
And I don’t even get a chance
to wipe before I am thinking about me
having nothing she hasn’t seen before
look down and touch the two bumps
on my chest, look to see what is tucked
between my knees
the cold gust from the hallway coming
through the door making my skin a land
of small hills I shiver, flush, wash
my hands, wonder what else she sees
On the drive back to the airport
no one is speaking
I hear nothing but
the water coming heavily
from the sky
against the windshield
sliding down into
the street
wipers
creating rhythm
and dance
at the same time
and seeming
to be the only things
happy
inside this car
besides me
seeming
to be waving
goodbye
to this woman
who raised her voice
to Daddy
for the last time
When we get back home under my mattress
I go back to my notebook / its silver coils now smashed almost flat / under my body every night / the edges of the cover now beginning to look tired of me / and my stupid shapes and lines it’s been holding / from Daddy / from this new woman / from Mommy / from me / I lift the cover of this stupid thing to look inside the pages / like it is a book / someone else has written / like it is a story about a girl / far away from me / I see scribbles and a few words with pictures / looking a lot like my insides / looking a lot like my brain / everything inside a mess with no meaning / everything a secret mess / like me
I know the doctor and Daddy
want me
to draw something anything
about missing
my mother
but all
I can
think about
is that
night, flashes
of memory
that don’t
make any
sense, that
with each
day, my
shame tucks
it away
even more
COLLEGE
I just love the way I feel
when I’m doin it, you know
like can’t nobody tell me
I’m wrong or that what I feel
ain’t the truth
sure some of these girls is
skinnier and got
better posture
than me
prancin up and down
these studios, legs flyin
all high up in the air
with their asses tucked in
like they better than us
cause they been trainin
for years, she says
leaning back
on her elbows across my bed
like it’s hers and like she’s
been here
a thousand times before
but you know what?
they can’t teach these
barbies on pointe
how to dance from the CHEST
ain’t no book for that shit
she says releasing
her elbows out, hands stacked under her head
her back all the way down closing her eyes
So why do you think
they’re paying
all this money
to be here, then
if you don’t
really need
to be classically
trained
to dance
I question
Because they’re dumb
she replies, without opening her eyes
how you think those little African kids
&n
bsp; on Youtube and Instagram learned
to move like that?
never seen a ballet class
in they whole life
but they be GETTIN IT
out here killin the game
tell me
THAT
ain’t real technique
people out here payin
thousands of dollars when all
they ever need is their feet and a beat
You don’t pay
to learn to dance?
I ask Kendra
well yeah,
but not no overpriced tuition
where they make me
read shit I don’t wanna learn
she says eyeballing
my accounting 101 textbook
now beginning to collect dust
I want to learn
from who I want
and I do it
on my own terms
besides, they still out here
acting like ballet
is the holy grail of dance
like . . . ain’t this a black school?
Kendra had a point
that week she’d already
shown me like fifty videos
of these dancers
all over Instagram
with millions of likes
and they were African just like me . . . sort of
moving to drums or songs
that sounded like the music
my dad and his friends played
at Nigerian parties or what
I used to hear in class
without a pointed toe
in sight
but I know
somebody had to have
taught them
I know you don’t just
wake up knowing how
to move like that
I mean come on, now
look at the Tofo Tofo Dance Group for example
THE Beyoncé was callin THEM
for her “Run the World” video—
not the other way around
fuck technique
she says mockingly with air quotes
I’m just tryna be smooth with it
like them and all my ancestors
so smooth can’t nobody