A Story the Body Keeps Telling.
Art from Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash.
My body has somehow become a site of struggle.
The one place that was supposed to hold me wholly and without condition–that should have been mine tenderly and entirely–has now become a mutiny, out of control, no longer mine. Even now, as his hand wraps around my waist, thumb nimbly stroking the round softness of my belly, my body, against my will, recoils from what should have been a pleasurable touch. You love this man, my heart whispers to my senses, as if begging all of them to come to an agreement, to a meeting point so that my body can become wholly mine again.
Touch me, don’t touch me, I’m repulsive. Touch me, don’t hold me, I’m disgusting. My body screams at me, sinking in itself, evading his touch, further and further away from those delicate fingers that simply want to hold me. Even when hurt begins to droop his features, even when he tilts his head, concern floating in his eyes, even when he murmurs, “Is this okay?” My body continues to war with all my senses, surrendering to those hollowing voices, those soft ruinous voices in my head tugging with rationality. Touch me, don’t touch me, I’m repulsive, I feel disgusting. Hold me, don’t hold me, my head screams at him.
They’re loud, louder today more than usual as they remind me that my body has become too altered, too distant for love—for this man’s love—to still find a home in it.
This body began to morph into something I did not recognise in the final semester of my third year at uni. A quiet Saturday morning, when student party goers forced the city into peaceful silence, wind blowing empty cups and cigarette butts from end to end of the streets as I plucked another hair from my chin. The fifteenth strand in barely two days since I last marinated my facial hair in tepid wax. Body hairs, virulent and stubborn in some places, tender and delicate in others, but altogether growing at a rapid pace in uncomfortable places on my body. It’s not a big deal, his voice had risen from where he’d been tangled with the sheets of my tiny uni bed, sifting through papers and papers of research we’d been going through earlier in the day for our dissertation.
Aritsefino had become a permanent fixture in my life from the moment his cousin, Uwa, who I’d been sleeping with casually over our first years in Derby, introduced us one sticky summer night two years ago at Club Verve.
Call me Tsefi. The softness of his words contrasted with the cacophony of chaos from the throbbing house music, writhing sweaty bodies, cocktails spilt on wooden floors, and a splattering display of red plastic cups. Tsefi, I’d echoed, eyes locked on his, something about them holding me hostage to the moment, senses blind to the energetic world around us–including Uwa’s incessant questions of drinks, Ewa? We’d been conversing without words, a synching of souls, somehow managing to slot himself into the quiet parts of my heart. And when Uwa finally gave up and headed towards the bar, everything about Tsefi in that moment enslaved me to him.
“Dance with me, Ewa.” His voice had dripped with subtext.
Everything in me was attuned to him, the way the vein in his neck throbbed in synchrony with mine, the way his eyes shone with honesty and a kind of longing I was certain was mirrored in mine. I wanted him, that much I could admit to myself. It didn’t make sense, it wasn’t rational, it just existed. But it wouldn’t be fair to Uwa, not when he was merely thirty feet away. So I’d shaken my head no, slipping my fingers out of his as my eyes drifted to Uwa, sweet Uwa, who in recent days had been pushing for more than the casualness of what we were doing. Tsefi had laughed, a certain musicality to it that forcibly, unfairly, drew me in deeper. I’d shaken my head again, both refusing his request but also reminding myself not to tread these confusing waters that his presence was beginning to stir in the depths of me. He’d laughed again, the sound settling in my guts, before he’d shrugged and mumbled, “It’s not a big deal.”
It’s not a big deal, words he’d murmured that day we met–when I’d felt an unusual kind of stirring I’d never felt before–being repeated in the moments my body began to feel like a stranger. Life and its cruel sense of humour. His voice rose again from where he remained, surrounded by papers and sheets, tone dripping with a need to ground me; words quickened to pull me out of the minefield that my thoughts had devolved into. And it somehow enraged me. How easy it was for him to conclude it wasn’t important enough. That the quiet, subtle ways my body was beginning to take a new form wasn’t a good enough reason to shake the grounds of the very earth we stood on. It irked me how easily he could dismiss something that had upturned the status quo I existed in, how quickly he was able to describe it as not being a big deal. In that moment that day, as I resignedly plucked more hairs from the base of my chin, wincing from the sharpness of my tweezers pressed against skin, his words, 'It's not a big deal, Ewa,' continuously rang through, and I struggled to see the truth in them.
So I walked away from him that day. It was the first time I would end things in what would be a back-and-forth cycle our relationship would take, not because I no longer had feelings for him, but because sometimes–more times than I realised–it began to feel as though my new body existed in contrast with the weight of the feelings.
My body began to exist without clarity the second time I met Tsefi after that day at Club Verve, in a bookstore cafe. Hozier’s From Eden, a backdrop to the etherealness of that moment. Uwa and I were no longer fucking, my brain had managed to latch on to the night I met Tsefi and had continued assaulting me with memories of that singular look and the eventual dance with him, so that a continued dalliance with his cousin felt like a betrayal. A misguided sense of disloyalty, even though I’d only met Tsefi that one time.
Ẹwà, right? It means beauty, yeah? I wanted to ask the other day but Ereuwa took monopoly over you, were the first words that brushed the back of my neck as I combed the overhead menu, even though I’d determined my coffee order long before entering the front doors. My heart began its riotous rhythm, racing to mimic the syncopated pacing of the song through the overhead speaker.
He’d said something else in response to my casual nod, but what would forever plaster itself to the forefront of my memories was the way his fingers tapped the edge of the mahogany counter, following the time signature of the rhythm from the song blasting throughout the cafe.
Something so magic about you, don’t you agree? There had been a twinkling in his eyes as he sang along to Hozier’s words, his expression a mixture of playfulness and tenderness, settling himself into the booth opposite mine even as I rolled my eyes. I’d watched his lips, the way they wrapped around each word—the caressing of his Os, the popping of his Ps. The pinching of his Ts—and for a moment, I wondered what they would look like wrapped around mine. Just for a brief moment. I allowed myself in that lapse of time to picture it, the flattening of his top lip over mine, the moulding of his bottom between mine, worlds and emotions colliding. But outside of the comfort of my mind, the only response I gave to his words was a quiet shake of my head and a faint attempt at chuckling, as I tugged the sleeves of my sweater over my fingers, my discomfort evident in the crossing and uncrossing of my knees.
He had said something along the lines of, ‘Am I making you uncomfortable?’ but my mind had already drifted away from the cafe, roamed back to the previous evening, the day that began to change my perception of self.
We’d been stacking chairs in church. It was a mundane evening, so ordinary. Piling chairs upon chairs, conversations littered with God willing and stories ending with by the grace of God. Laughs shared with acquaintances who sometimes masked as friends depending on the circumstances. So ordinary for a day when I would come into the full realisation that my body was no longer my own. No, somehow it had become a conversation, with everyone else except me. See your stomach, Ewa, ChiChi had exclaimed, her tone rising in what we collectively understood to be a playful tone, the lilt in her voice lifting to a teasing one. The retorting, I wanted to even say something o, followed, hands no longer arranging chairs and tables, instead reaching over, playfully tugging at the edges of my blouse, laughter that they expected me to contribute to piercing through this body that had now become a canvas for their commentary, clinging to their words, holding on to their commentary like it was truth.
I’d laughed a self-deprecating kind of laugh. It was the only thing I could do: agree with them, confirm that my body was changing in ways I had zero control over and in ways that would make me consumed by its betrayal. So we laughed and laughed, and somehow I became complicit in distorting the story my body began to tell. Ireti from the welfare department–who I would consider a passing friend since we were in the same department at uni–had placed both hands on either sides of my waist, her movement playful as she jerked them from side to side, her teasing words, See your new childbearing hips, stripping my body of some semblance of clarity into a territory I didn’t want it to only exist in. I never wanted my body to be defined in the context of motherhood; I simply wanted it to be mine. Solely, wholly.
“You’re gorgeous.” Two words that managed to pull me out from my chaotic thoughts that day. As if he could sense my internal chaos. Tsefi’s words, like a vise, wrapped around my heart, pulling me into a conversation about what he meant by the words ‘you’re gorgeous.’ They held me captive. Not because I necessarily agreed with them, but the honesty behind the words, those eyes blazing with a sincerity that I couldn’t understand, fascinated me. What did gorgeous mean beyond being a complimentary adjective? What was the specificity of what it was supposed to look like? Had the words only leaked out from his mouth because he needed to weaponise them at that moment, or was it born from an objectively genuine assessment? Perhaps it had been this craving for an answer that prompted me to hold on to him in my life.
We had gone on to form a deeply emotional friendship before embracing bravery and entering into a proper relationship six months after that day at Club Verve. And every day, he would remind me of those two words: You’re gorgeous. When it felt like my body doubled and I could no longer recognise it in front of a mirror. When I slowly transitioned away from my favourite micro skirts into sweats and baggy shirts. When it was almost impossible to leave the house–consumed by overthinking spirals that stretched into hours–until I felt perfect. When it felt like everything about me was picked apart by glances, stretched by opinions and torn down by whispers, he held on to the same words. You’re gorgeous. Those words would continue to ring in the recesses of my mind, forming an anthem whenever memories of him somehow managed to splash to the forefront of my mind.
He hums the same song from that day at the cafe, in the quiet of my room now, back of his knees held up by the tiny desk tucked in the corner of my small uni accommodation, one arm wrapped around the lower part of my waist, the other beside him. Tap, tap, pause, tap, tap, tap, fingers creating an uneven rhythm in their tapping in his attempt to mimic the jagged pacing of the song. Over and over again, he continues the movement, the fingers now wrapped around my waist, obeying and imitating his tapping in their stroking. He stops when he gets to the beats that herald the words: idealism sits in prison, chivalry fell on its sword, smiling a soft smile, the same one that had climbed up his lips that day at Club Verve, before he finally looks up.
“You’re perfect, Ẹwà,” are his next words, to which I sigh and question like I’d always done whenever we would have this hackneyed circular conversation: “What does perfect mean, Fi?”
I turn and turn side to side in front of my full-length mirror, head tilted not waiting for his response, my eyes trained on the newer folds within folds, studying the soft swell and full plumpness of my lower belly, the sudden sagging and disproportionality that now define my breasts, the stretch marks that have suddenly begun to line and decorate the crevices of the inner parts of my thighs and arms. His fingers, stroking, suddenly feel like a violation of a body that has violated me by morphing without my consent. So I shrug out of his embrace, from his arms that had attempted comfort, from this intimacy of being seen.
Ẹwà, the name lingers in the quiet of my room, and I watch him watch me. Tsefi had the distinct ability to draw out a litany of emotions whenever my name rolled from his tongue, threads and threads of emotions wrapped around the way he breathed those two syllables (Ẹh-wà), the genuineness of his belief in its meaning–that there was truly beauty where my body had convinced me it was purely ugliness–palpable on his lips. A strip of tears rolls down my cheeks. Down and down until he’s wiping them away, until he’s leaving trails and traces of himself against my skin.
“It means everything you want it to mean to you. Whatever you need it to mean to you.” He finally says. I hold on to his words the same way I’d done in the past whenever he repeated his reassurance.
My mind drifts to the first time his words had permanently morphed from it’s not a big deal to you’re perfect the way you are. I didn’t even realise that my mind had held on to this memory, so closely, so tightly. It had been months after I first noticed this stretching — newer shapes my body had begun to take since resuming the third year of uni. Confidence had given way to crippling self-consciousness. Without my consent over the past few weeks, it had become a canvas that seemed to bend and stretch and mould to the whims of everyone else but me, its owner. Eat this way, maintain this routine, use these remedies, don’t eat this way, wear these clothes, don’t sit in this manner. Somehow, everyone was working overtime to tell me that what I looked like was unappealing to the average eye, yet seemed to be thrown into a conundrum on what the solution was.
I’d wanted my old body back, and in a bid to find it, I’d begun trying unusual remedies, the latest being a distasteful combination of Charcoal powder, Cayenne, Bitter Leaf, and Turmeric that worked for multiple ailments and promised quick-fix weight loss results. Tsefi had watched me drain the clear glass of its last liquid, everything in me hopeful that it would somehow be enough to permanently shrink the assemblage of fat that had made its home around my waist, wrapped itself in my thighs and hung conspicuously under my jaw. We’d watched each other for minutes after that, perhaps even longer, the slow whirl of the dryer in the kitchen the only sound. They said it helps, I’d finally murmured once I put the glass down, wiping remnants of my insecurity off my lips as I turned away from him. Does it really? He’d finally responded, sighing with an exasperation that seemed foreign to him. You’re perfect the way you are, Ẹwà, if only you could see yourself the way I see you. My simple-minded response had been to roll my eyes, shaking my head with an insinuation that he couldn’t speak from a place of experience, that he didn’t understand, that he couldn’t understand. So we began the questions dance, his words working overtime to reassure me of a truth I was unable to see.
“Don’t despise the stories your body is telling, baby.” His words carry a note of finality, drawing me away from my thoughts and back to this reality we inhabit, as he slowly begins to pull away. I stare at him through the mirror, eyes skillfully oscillating between his and my reflection, everything in me desperately wanting to see the truth in his words. His words…fighting to permeate, to remind me that in whatever shape or form my body took, whatever way it began to crystallise, it existed to tell more stories. Beautiful reveries. Enthralling narratives.
I reach out, pulling his arm back around my waist. Cautiously. Carefully.
“Touch me.”
Because maybe I could accept whatever tale this new body was determined to weave without running to madness seeking for clarity. Maybe I could sit with it. Wholly. Solely.
