“Wouldn’t we?”
“No, because we are hardwired to protect and remain loyal to the people we love. Besides, no one is innocent in this world. Why, go up to your maternity ward! All those smiling parents and their newborns? Murderers and victims. Every one of them. ‘The most loving parents and relatives commit murder with smiles on their faces. They force us to destroy the person we really are: a subtle kind of murder.’ ”

‘The most loving parents and relatives commit murder with smiles on their faces. They force us to destroy the person we really are: a subtle kind of murder.’ ”

“Your sister, I do not know. I hear that she is very lovely, but I have not seen her for myself and so do not care about her. You, I know.” He points to me. “You, I care about.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know you. I woke up because of you—your voice calling to me. I still hear you in my dreams…”
He is waxing lyrical. It feels like I’m in another dream.

Seeing her up close, he smiled—but it was not the same smile he had lavished on us earlier.
“Your daughter is very beautiful.”
“Really,” my father replied, cocking his head.
“Very, very lovely.” He moistened his lips. I grabbed Ayoola’s hand and pulled her a couple of steps backward.

She closes my door and I stare at the slip of paper with Muhtar’s number on it. I light a candle on my nightstand and hold the paper over the flame until the numbers are swallowed by blackness and fire licks the tips of my fingers. There will never be another Muhtar, I know this. There will never be another opportunity to confess my sins or another chance to absolve myself of the crimes of the past…or the future. They disappear with the curling paper, because Ayoola needs me; she needs me more than I need untainted hands.

she needs me more than I need untainted hands.

I shall possess this woman; I shall steal her from the husband who profanes her: I will even dare ravish her from the God whom she adores. What delight, to be in turns the object and the victor of her remorse! Far be it from me to destroy the prejudices which sway her mind! They will add to my happiness and my triumph. Let her believe in virtue, and sacrifice it to me; let the idea of falling terrify her, without preventing her fall; and may she, shaken by a thousand terrors, forget them, vanquish them only in my arms.

it is centered around those who had the power to define it.

the other said,
“love is cursed by monogamy.”

“You don’t remember being me, do
You?”
………………………………………………………..
“you were a very long time ago.”

so i don’t blame you
if you want to
bury me in your memory
i’m not the girl
i ought to be

Truth was, I hated that he still felt guilty. It wasn’t charitable but apologies didn’t exonerate the sinner, only compelled graciousness from its recipient. The words, each time they came, so repetitive that I could tune a clock to their angst, sawed through me. You can’t move forward when someone keeps dragging you back. I trapped the tip of my tongue between my teeth, bit down, and exhaled through the sting.

“Because it gets lonely down in the dirt,” Phillip continued, while I held my tongue to the steeple of my mouth. “Why do you think there are so many stories of ghosts trying to get people to kill themselves? Because they miss having someone there, someone warm. It doesn’t matter how many corpses are lying in the soil with them. It’s not the same. The dead miss the sun. It’s dark down there.”

Like women, I thought. Like being a star, being loved, being hungered for. He excelled at inciting want, particularly the kind that tottered on the border of worship. Small wonder he was so inept at compassion sometimes. Every religion is a one-way relationship.

A girl in her bridal whites, jaw sharp as a promise. Her kisses close-lipped, without tongue or heat. Like a benediction or a prayer or an ending.