Ézíọ́kwú:

“Truth” from the mouth of a traditional man.

⚠️ CONTENT WARNING: ⚠️

This essay contains depictions of domestic violence, sexual assault, and themes of death.

Please, do take care while reading. ‼️

Photo by David Gabrić on Unsplash

Adaobi, hapü m aka, biko! (leave me alone, please!)

How many times do you want me to say it?

I no longer sleep well at night

because I know you are lurking in the shadows,

watching us and waiting.

Ugo, my wife, is beginning to lose her senses.

Yesterday, she said I was cursed,

because bad things started happening

to us when I married her

and I made sure

to slap the living daylight out of her mouth.

You have already taken our second son,

what more do you want,

is it until you destroy my marriage?

You are fully aware that everything that happened was all your fault!

I never knew you were that foolish and adamant to corrections the day I first saw you. It was not obvious at all because you hid it well. You hid it well like you used to hide those stains on your wrapper, folding it inward so nobody would notice your carelessness.

Adaobi, you were too beautiful that I almost forgot to breathe. I watched you that evening, too much for my own good. Was it not Steven that brought you to the floor and Paul that you danced with, swaying your hips to the ogene as if that was the only thing you were born to do? Did Kingsley not help you tidy up your blouse — the orange one that made your eyes glean — when Chinyere, your friend spilled palmi on you, with his hawk eyes making effort not to leave your full chest?

You knew what you were doing. You knew every one of us wanted nothing other than to take you to bed. So, I thought I had made it when you chose me. Chai! Little did I know.

But I loved you, Adaobi. Eziokwu! (To be honest). Ahürü m gi n’anya. (I loved you). And you knew it too. Was that not why you were always eager sneaking out at night to meet me behind the banana trees in your backyard? Was that not why you agreed for me to finally meet your parents with palm wine?

Do you not remember the first night we lay together in the barn? Do you not remember how I held you in my arms, caressing your face and thighs until you wanted to kiss me, but I did not believe in kissing women. Do you not remember how I fondled your voluptuous breasts in my palms until I put them in my mouth?

Adaobi, you cannot say you do not recall seeing the look in my eyes the moment I abandoned tradition and sucked on your middle, or how your piercing screams filled the night’s air because I worked like my life depended on it so that your hands pressed my head down and further, desperately willing for me to remain there.

Do not forget that you declared your love for me when I took you all the way. Did you not hold my gaze there and then, trembling like a loose leaf blown about by the harshest wind? It cannot have escaped your mind so soon, it has not escaped mine.

I loved you so much that I even wanted you to bear my own sons. My first was supposed to be Ekene. So, was it not your fault that you did not stop giving me girls? I had to discard them because my lineage had to continue. I still do not understand why you stopped smiling after the first time, or why you would have run away from me had I not caught and dragged you back. You were very ungrateful.

Even your own family could not understand what you were thinking when you eventually ran away, to them. Did they not bring you back to me themselves because leaving was not our culture? Adaobi, did you not see how things were done in your own father’s house too or were you that ignorant?

I was always too good to you. My friends would advise me to teach you the manners your old mother did not teach you, even they could testify of your stubbornness that I began to feel ashamed, both of myself and of you.

I knew I just had to put you in your place or things would go wrong. It hurt you but it hurt me too, Adaobi. You had pushed me to the wall and I could no longer take it. I remember the moment the first strike landed on your bare back, as I had stripped you naked. That day, I broke too when I saw the disbelief, pain and regret in your eyes as you wailed like a wounded horse.

I remember that you tried to fight me. You wanted to cause me equal pain and I was incensed. Where was it said that a wife raised her hands at her husband?

You were mad, Adaobi. You needed to be brought back.

It was that day I first raised my hands at you and it continued only because you would not learn. I did not know what to do to you when you stopped allowing me to touch you in bed. Maka Chukwu! (By God). Who would I have told? How would I have said it? That my own wife whom I paid for with my money refused me pleasure? When I am a man with complete manhood? Tufiakwa! (God forbid!)

I knew you would fight me. The first time I took my right, you bit and bit, and fought till you fainted, but I made sure the deed was done. I was a man and not a mere woman. I was certain that you had to succumb sooner or later but your constant fighting did even more to irritate me that making love with you no longer held good taste. A man would only tire after so long, even from taking what was his own right.

Photo by Sebastian Schuster on Unsplash

I started seeing Funke. Ahh, Funke! Do you remember when you caught us together and hit the roof — raving like a mad woman? I had my first best orgasm that day. I still go to see her now sometimes, but it has reduced. Ugo knows exactly how to do it well.

But, Funke showed me the real power a woman wielded — how to satisfy. Is it not with her that I did not last 1 minute for the first time? Is it not with Funke that I saw stars glistening? Her warm mouth had more usefulness than your whole being put together. Funke showed me that you were not even worth it.

Doesn’t our holy book say ‘only the truth shall set you free?’ I will say my truth. You cannot keep disturbing our peace. If it is an apology you want — Ndo. (Sorry).

I have said it, Adaobi. But, it was not my fault you fell down that day, nor was it my fault your head hit the concrete too hard. You did not learn to prepare my food on time before I came home in the evenings, you did not learn to pound fufu properly, exactly how I liked it.

If there was anything you knew how to do well, it was to challenge me every time you had the chance, I did not even have peace under my own roof.

So, you got what you deserved; let us speak our truths.

Photo by David Garry on Unsplash

Now, my new wife is with me. She will birth our sons, Ekene and others. And you will not touch them, ï nügo? (have you heard?).

If worse comes to worst, I will break my own rule and go to Dibia Eche.

Hapü anyï aka! (leave us alone), your time has gone.

The intention was to craft this narrator exactly as he comes across to you (I’ll leave you to decide how)— perhaps the cruelest thing is this: that most men do not even know they are wrong. I mean what do you do when you have been told, for generations, who exactly you should be?

If this feels too familiar, like it does to me, I’m sorry. It is because convenience still dresses as custom in our time. We may have reached an age where such stories are less common, but it is no secret they still exist — sometimes in full force.

Reprogramming mindsets is not easy. But, we keep trying — one conversation, one fury, one story, one read at a time. 🤏🏾