Zikora Quotes

If he was going to have a child, of course he should have a say, but how much of a say, since the body was mine, since in creating a child, Nature demanded so much of the woman and so little of the man.

You can’t nice your way to being loved.

I read somewhere that love was about this, the nuggets of knowledge about our beloved that we so fluently hold

Some kindnesses you do not ever forget. You carry them to your grave, held warmly somewhere, brought up and savored from time to time.

I looked at my mother, standing by the window. How had I never really seen her? It was my father who destroyed, and it was my mother I blamed for the ruins left behind.

How you imagine something will be is always worse than how it actually ends up being,

Tears were so cheap now.

Nature must not want humans to reproduce, otherwise birthing would be easy, even enjoyable:

Something was growing inside me, alien, uninvited, and it felt like an infestation.

I felt translucent, so fragile that one more rejection would make me come fully undone.

The frequent flare of sad longing.

They learned instead from mainstream pornography, where women were always shaved smooth and never had periods, and so they became men who thought the contrived histrionics onscreen were How Things Were Done.

I read somewhere that love was about this, the nuggets of knowledge about our beloved that we so fluently hold.

The labor and delivery ward needed to have a false-eyelash policy.

Each morning, I coated concealer on the dark bags under my eyes. Most days, I caressed a bottle of Advil, longing for the translucent green pills, but knowing that I would never take them.

It had never occurred to me not to have the baby, and he must have heard it in my voice. The knowledge came to him as an already-sealed box.

Some days I was fine and some days I was underwater, barely breathing.

I didn’t question whether it was real, because I knew it was. I questioned where it had gone. How could emotions just change? Where did it go, the thing that used to be?

He often said, “I don’t do commitment,” with a rhythm in his voice, as though miming a rap song, but I didn’t hear what he said; I heard what I wanted to hear: he hadn’t done commitment yet.

When my grandmother died, I called him crying, and he said, “Sorry,” and then in the next breath, “Has your period ended so I can stop by?” My period had not ended and so he did not stop by. I believed then that love had to feel like hunger to be true.

I was trying to make love me when I didn’t yet know that you cannot nice your way into being loved.

Her addiction to dignity infuriated me, alienated me, but I always looked past why she held so stiffly to her own self-possession.

Bear it, that is what it means to be a woman,” and it was years before I knew that girls took Buscopan for period pain.

I was so secure in my relationship with Kwame that I just never considered being alone.

We mostly spoke English; Igbo was for mimicking relatives and for saying painful things.

What did “It’s time to get married” mean, anyway? Why did she have to marry at all?

I read somewhere that love was about this, the nuggets of knowledge about our beloved that we so fluently

Bear it, that is what it means to be a woman.

He would kill you, but he would do it courteously.

Some days I was fine and some days I was underwater, barely breathing,

Nature demanded so much of the woman and so little of the man.

I was bearing the responsibility of a full-grown man.

I knew how I was supposed to feel, but I did not know how I felt.

Respect: a starched deference, a string of ashen rituals.

I just want them to know I can handle it, I can do it alone,” I said. “Some of us have men and are still doing it alone,” Mmiliaku said. She could have gloated. She could have asked, “Isn’t this the perfect man you won by deciding not to settle?” She could have been passive aggressive, or resentful, or lectured me in that world-weary way of a woman who believed that men would be men. But she didn’t, and so with the light streaming through my apartment window, I began to weep because my cousin had grace and I lacked grace.

think I should leave. Is that okay?” he asked as though he needed my permission to abandon me. He would kill you, but he would do it courteously.

If he was going to have a child, of course he should have a say, but how much of a say, since the body was mine, since in creating a child, Nature demanded so much of the woman and so little of the man. I remembered

I made myself boneless and amenable. I spent weekends willing the landline next to my bed to ring. Often it didn’t. Then he would call, before midnight, to ask if I was still up, so he could visit and leave before dawn.

What was “normal”? That Nature traded in unnecessary pain? It wasn’t his intestines being set on fire, after all.

he rolled his eyes in a kind of disbelieving amusement. “What, the single friend will seduce the husband, or the single friend will make the wife want to be single again?

Ours was an ancient story, the woman wants the baby and the man doesn’t want the baby and a middle ground does not exist.

He grew up with his dreams already dreamt for him.

I was disgracing her now; I was not facing labor with laced-up dignity. She wanted me to meet each rush of pain with a mute grinding of teeth, to endure pain with pride, to embrace pain, even. When I had severe cramps as a teenager, she would say, “Bear it, that is what it means to be a woman,” and it was years before I knew that girls took Buscopan for period pain.

We scrub and scrape our armpits and upper lip and legs because we hate to have hair there. Then we pamper and treat the hair on our heads because we love hair there. But it’s all hair. It’s the wanting that makes the difference.

read somewhere that love was about this, the nuggets of knowledge about our beloved that we so fluently hold.

Zikky, it won’t be easy, but it won’t be as hard as you think. How you imagine something will be is always worse than how it actually ends up being,

I knew how I was supposed to feel, but I did not know how I felt. It was not transcendental. There was a festering red pain between my legs. Somewhere in my consciousness, a mild triumph hovered, because it was over, finally it was over, and I had pushed out the baby. So animalistic, so violent—the push and pressure, the blood, the doctor urging me, the cranking and stretching of flesh and organ and bone.

Only Mmiliaku knew, and I never told the boy who didn’t love me, the boy I was trying to make love me when I didn’t yet know that you cannot nice your way into being loved.

It felt like the Old Testament. A plague. A primitive wind blowing at will, evil but purposelessly so, an overcoming in my body that didn’t need to be.

love was about this, the nuggets of knowledge about our beloved that we so fluently hold.

I believed then that love had to feel like hunger to be true.

I began to cry. Tears were so cheap now. How do some memories insist on themselves?

But I was wearied of his rejection,

A geyser of anxiety had erupted deep inside me and I was spurting fear.

Only later did I see how, to survive, she wielded her niceness like a subtle sharp knife.

was to remember like a brief blur my life as it once was, when I was only a daughter, not a mother.

My father told jokes and laughed and charmed everyone, and broke things and walked on the shards without knowing he had broken things.

I felt light from relief, weightless, unburdened.

I cried, looking out the window at the cars and lights of a city that knew my loneliness.

Some kindnesses you do not ever forget.

You carry them to your grave, held warmly somewhere, brought up and savored from time to time.

emotions

sat

How swift the moment is when your life becomes a different life.

Symptoms can mean nothing if a mind is convinced, if a thing just cannot

and I never told the boy who didn’t love me, the boy I was trying to make love me when I didn’t yet know that you cannot nice your way into being loved.

Her silence bruised the air between us.

A fog blanketed me, a kind of deadness. I didn’t cry; crying seemed too ordinary for this moment.

In my head, there was a queue of emotions I could not name, wanting to be tried out one after the other.

I felt ragged and hopeless, high on my desperation. I had already ripped up my dignity, so I might as well scatter the pieces.

for a moment I felt an intense desire to pass out and escape my life.

Nature must not want humans to reproduce, otherwise birthing would be easy, even enjoyable: babies would easily slip out, and mothers would remain unmarked and whole, merely blessed by having bestowed life.

was suspended in a place of no feeling, waiting to feel.

my dark day further darkened.

sifted through my memories, as though through debris, trying to find a reason.

When I had severe cramps as a teenager, she would say, “Bear it, that is what it means to be a woman,” and it was years before I knew that girls took Buscopan for period pain.

He said, “I thought you let me because you had protection.” I said, “What are you talking about? You know I stopped taking the pill because it made me fat, and I assumed you knew what it meant, what it could mean.” He said, “There was miscommunication.

Respect: a starched deference, a string of ashen rituals. It was my mother who sat beside my father at weddings and ceremonies; it was her photo that appeared above the label of “wife” in the booklet his club published in his honor. Respect was her reward for acquiescing.