Words Become Violence

“Ore mi, orobo!”

You ignored how the market women beckoned you to their wares, calling you and naming you the size of your body. You ignored how they hurtfully stated the obvious but cushioned it in between familiar and friendly words, to remind you that this type of teasing was just a neighbourhood marketing strategy. This never failed to remind you that there is no greater discomfort than the gawking looks of strangers, which caused you to withdraw into the back of your mind, into the box where you tally the doses of self-preservation left.

Orobo.

The men called, but their words held no false familiarity or friendly tone like the women’s. Their words were well grounded in jest and disgust. They sneered while the local fool amongst them imitated the way you walked, elaborated the size of your breasts and exaggerated the width of your hips. For a torturous moment, you would watch their heads roll back in laughter while you fought off the dirty and eager hands of those who tried to grope and dehumanise you; and you would watch the same women that called you friend minutes earlier, laugh along with them and warn their daughters not to end up the same size as you.

These moments would linger in your thoughts. These thoughts would betray you further and haunt you later at night, while you stand naked in front of a broken mirror. These thoughts would often manifest itself as invisible ink to be written across your forehead and chest, while you grab every fold, dip and flab of your body.

This was how you learned to take on a new name. An identity moulded by society, and one you had no power over.

“Have you met anyone new?”

You watched her flabby arms swing with every blow to the mortar. You shook your head while you tossed another piece of yam into the mortar, as your aunt prepared for another full swing.

“You need to hurry up, child. Girls your size don’t look young for a long time. The longer you wait, the older you look, and the more men you scare off!” She said in between deep breaths, as she used the edge of her wrapper to wipe away the beads of sweat gathering on her forehead.

“What if men I scare off easily are the exact type of men I should be avoiding?” You muttered apprehensively.

“Don’t be foolish. People your size don’t have a choice. You should feel lucky if they even look your way.”

You felt a shift in reality, like the room grew smaller and air rationed itself, inching further away from you. You stared at your beloved aunt, particularly at the beauty of her dark skin, the way it smoothed over the delicate features of her face, and the fullness of her lips like clay in the hands of an expert sculptor. You frowned at how age only seemed to attack other parts of her body, pulling and stretching skin on her limbs, weighing it down to drape over areas that once stood firm and impenetrable. You know that this rarely bothered her, because she had children and had aged better than the man she married. Focusing on anything less would be vanity, because she had done her duty, and wore age like a crown- no matter how violent it chose to be towards her body.

Later that day, you stood over your reflection in a muddy puddle at the side of your street. It amused you how a few years ago, you thought that harsh words spoken subtly, such as the ones your aunt had spoken earlier, would not attack your self-esteem, but would bounce off easily with age. However, you realized that these words had only buried itself deeper into your skin, taking your psyche hostage while grooming a larger territory for the violence it invoked.

You thought of your aunt and the ones that came before her, and you started to think of family as violence. Family, in whose tender arms you are entrusted with by the universe, in whose warm coldness you learn how to love conditionally, in whose eyes you reluctantly learn forgiveness, and with whose mouths you learn to swallow betrayal. Your heart saddens knowing that family has become the greatest violence your body will ever know by the mere words they speak.

Well-meaning words that make a bed for low self-esteem, and a home for pain. Well-meaning words that regurgitate at the back of your mind and form into hurtful words you take and burn into your skin, night after night. Words you wear like a cloak of shame, invisible tattoos you wear as sleeves and begin to define yourself by, the second you offer a friendly hand to strangers. Words that eventually stow away into lost boxes, taunting you every time you try to reach into the deeper folds and pits of your mind, into those corners where memories love to dance and hide. Thinning words that fade into nothingness, but whose fragments etch onto the webs of your mind. This is how you learn to tell each story with your body, because most memories worth remembering are laced with unforgettable pain from the razor-sharp words of those you bear the torturous task of loving unconditionally.

They often tell you that loving yourself is the first step because it is a difficult task. Now, you want to tell them that loving yourself is an impossible task, because it means relearning a lost identity. You want to speak about the many ways you have been violated and the many times your walls have beaten, shaken then torn down. Broken pieces kicked and tossed around. You want to confess the many times you have wanted to scream, simply because you have been told your trauma is not enough. You have been told that your trauma doesn’t scream into the dead of the night, in torn clothes, with a pitiful sweet face whose innocence has been stripped away. Your trauma is neither black nor white, but grey riddled with holes that beg for questions and apathy. Questions you do not have answers to, like why your greatest sin is the body you carry. You want to tell any one that would listen that the violence your body has known is not in the beat of the drum, but in the little whispers that tend to strip you bare and objectified, leaving your inner soul naked and vulnerable.

You want to tell them that the violence you carry, exists in the middle of the day, hiding in plain sight, under the warm sun as it wraps around loose tongues that call you the many names you were not christened with; and becomes the many words that shape your reflection.