It’s Thursday morning in Abuja.

My phone clock says 02:47, but the wall clock is saying a whole different thing.

I don’t even know which one to believe.

Dear C,

I pray that you never become too curious and decide to unblock me.

Yes… He found my Substack within 24 hours of talking to me, but had to block me because I told him not to read my work.

I told him that I was going to show him my page myself.

That if we should ever meet and I’m confident enough, then I will hand him my phone so that he will read from the source.

I just hope that curiosity doesn’t get the best of him.

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This is the third piece that I’m writing about love in one week, not two or even a month.

One week, and my page is about to turn into a love zone.

I started a smut piece a few days ago but couldn’t even finish it.

I wasn’t able to write past 100 words.

The cursor kept blinking, but nothing was happening in my mind.

And that’s because another activity has already occupied it.

Which is the reason why I’m writing this piece to encourage and not discourage you to not give love a chance.

Don’t fall in love, stand on business.

I’m not saying this from a place of, “I care about you.”

I’m saying this from a place of, “experience.”

Love will rubbish you, and I’m not even joking.

I have not even given the kind love a chance, but I have already checked his Instagram like 8 times already within the space of 12 hours.

If love is not a dangerous thing, then I wonder why an individual…

Just one individual has the power to determine whether you will smile or not.

If this thing called love is not an abnormality, then tell me why somebody that you don’t know from anywhere is suddenly a huge part of your life and routine.

Why are you suddenly considering them before doing anything because you do not want to hurt them or even make them feel bad?(he sent me a message today asking if I will be comfortable with him dying his hair).

You that doesn’t care about anybody but yourself is suddenly worried about your lover’s welfare.

Why hasn’t she called me since morning?

Is she okay?

This one that she is not online and she is not picking her calls.

“Love is a disease.” That is an intro to one short movie that I no longer remember the name.

And I concur.

It can only be a disease.

Even if it’s not a disease in real sense, then it sure acts like one.

Wikipedia defines disease as an abnormal condition that adversely affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism.

But I have my own definition of what a disease is, maybe as a pharmacist.

Disease changes people’s routine.

It places itself in the midst of people’s to-do list unannounced.

Instead of them going straight to work, they are caught up in the hospital or even in the pharmacy.

Disease actually makes people do things that they will not do on a norm.

It removes shame from people’s eyes.

I hope that this definition that I gave you explains the reason why a man was not ashamed to tell me that something was going on with him down there.

I just hope that you will be able to see the reason why a girl in her 20s was quick to show me a picture of her private part just to make me understand better.

This is something that they would not have done on a normal day.

This is how love operates as well.

It makes you look stupid.

You share what you did because of love with your friends, and you are suddenly the clown of the week.

All of a sudden, my heart is beating or even skipping when I see somebody that looks like them when I don’t have palpitation.

At this point ehnnnn,I need another exclamation that is higher than Omo.

The question is not even, “Is love beautiful?”

The proper question should be,

Is this love worth it?

Does this particular love deserve my time?

Does this love see me?

Because you cannot be awake thinking about a lover that doesn’t even see you for who you are.

A lover that doesn’t even think that you’re a big deal.

That’s an error, babes.

Will love be sweet as honey on a daily basis?

Obviously not.

There are days that you might not even want to see them.

At a point, it will feel like all the adrenaline that your body was pumping in the initial stage has dried up.

The everyday night call might no longer be giddy like before, but every time that you people meet,

It’s as if something is rekindled.

This is one of the reasons why I don’t promote long-distance relationships.

I mean… I’m not against it either, but it takes two people that really want to be together to be able to make a long-distance relationship work.

Research on long-distance relationships shows that communication and relationship-maintenance behaviours can affect intimacy, satisfaction and stress, and that the effects depend on how partners communicate and maintain the relationship.

There are some disagreements or even lovers’ quarrels that are best sorted out face to face.

I have seen beautiful relationships crumble because the person on the other end of the phone wasn’t able to communicate his/her emotions properly.

Relationships have crumbled because the person that was offended in the relationship wasn’t getting the reaction that he/she expected from their partner.

Crumbled because the apology felt so vague.

And research has actually found that face-to-face communication can be associated with feeling more understood and greater relationship satisfaction, although that does not mean that long-distance relationships cannot work.

If you are somebody that finds it difficult to express yourself over the phone, avoid long-distance relationships by all means.

Disagreement or even quarrel is something that will always exist in a relationship.

I mean… Y’all are two different people.

It’s not everything that you and your partner will agree on.

There are a lot of their views that might be different with yours, and it might lead to the both of you disagreeing.

NB: Human rights, feminism and political interests don’t belong to this category, ejor…

The man that you are in love with should at least believe that women are human beings too.

If he sees feminism as a threat and thinks that Tinubu deserves a second tenure, then you should actually question your choice, gurl.

Disagreements will come and go, but what is important is how the both of you handled it.

Did you talk about it, or did you just cast it aside till the issue at hand buried itself?

And before I drop my ink,

How your partner treats or even talks to you when they are angry with you,

When your opinion doesn’t align with theirs,

Should speak volume.

Who are they when they are boiling in anger or when things don’t go their way?

All these things are what you should actually pay attention to.

1. Fall hopelessly in love, but don’t lose yourself in the process.

2. Have a life outside your relationship.

3. Don’t cut your friends off or even stop showing up for friendship hangouts because you now have a man.

I’m directing this statements to a particular gender because it’s women that do it the most.

Men find themselves in love but still maintain their boys group and activities.

Your 24 hours, Monday-Sunday, shouldn’t revolve around this man.

I know what I’m saying.

Because they fit still serve you breakfast, so that when it happens, you will have people to fall back on.

People that will cut tissues for you.

Because just like business, love too is a 50/50 adventure.

You might get profit, you fit still collect loss.

He can say that he cannot do without you and still break your heart.

Which is why having an open mind when you are in a relationship is like a skincare.

Knowing that things can actually go south will save your heart.

And this is not me telling you that you shouldn’t give your love life your all.

This is me saying that you should bask in awareness.

Before Ndi “Substack is gradually turning into a relationship/smut app” start throwing tantrums again.

My final words to you is this:

Fall madly in love ooo, but don’t lose yourself in the process.

Ka emesia…

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Not because somebody broke my heart but because of a movie.

And because I’m your buddy, I think you should actually watch this particular movie. (It featured both BamBam and Stan Nze.)

That movie gave birth to this newsletter. This is not the article that I wanted to put out there after my weekend.

Another of my newsletters was supposed to come before this, but here we are.

Seeing that particular movie made me realize how much I want to be loved something that you guys refer to as yarning.

I want to be held, kissed, and adored.

I actually miss being held.

I miss kissing a man that I really love with my eyes closed.

I act like I don’t miss kissing, but I do.

I will not forget how I was unable to sleep the first time that a boy kissed me on the lips.

I was 19, he was my crush, and he was 19 as well.

For weeks, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

You will read a good number of my newsletters and think that I’m trying to achieve the kind of love that authors like and write about in their newsletters/notes but I’m not even gunning for that type.

I just want to have something special with somebody that sees me.

The kind of love that centers everything about me,the soft version of me, and that version of me that doesn’t take rubbish.

That version of me that my ex tagged the “confrontational Ella.”

*Rolls eyes.*

I know… pardon my manners.

I promised you guys that I won’t be mentioning my ex in any of my newsletters again, but before I continue, I want to leave you with an open question.

Feel free to give me an answer or not:

Is it really possible to forget about somebody that you were once in love with?

The Book of Manifestation says, and I quote: “For you to want something, it means there is a version of you that already has that thing.”

I hope that it works the same way with love as well.

It just has to, because if I’m not going to have it, then stop making me think about it.

If I cannot have the kind of love that will make me excited to wake up the next day, then I don’t want it.

I want to feel my adrenaline rush whenever his name pops up on my screen.

Spending time with him shouldn’t feel like a chore.

A man that actually likes me for who I am!

Notice how I’m not even saying “love,” because I want it to grow more, like blossom.

I know what a man that likes a woman looks like.

I have seen it in the past.

I have experienced it, even though we didn’t date because I was in my first year of uni and didn’t want to be in a relationship.

I knew that they really liked me.

When a man likes you, it will show.

It will show in the way that he talks about women in general.

The way that he talks about the women that he dated in the past is strongly on this table.

It will show in the way that he treats the women around him.

It will show in the way that he talks about you when he is in the midst of his friends.

It will definitely show in the way that he talks to you in public.

The way that he will want to make life easy for you.

The way his eyes beam with joy whenever he’s talking about you.

I have watched peopleform this theory about me.

They paint me as a difficult person.

They make statements like, “I pity your man,” “I pity the man that you will marry,” just because I’m an opinionated woman that strongly believes that women are human beings too.

I laugh off their comments because I know who I am.

I know how that version of me that is in love with a man can be.

I don’t even like her, because of how much she compromises.

The Ella version of me won’t do a lot of things that the “Sopuruchi” version will do because of love.

Which is one of the reasons why I don’t even want my next man to come from Substack.

I have given more than enough information I’m so scared that he might just copy everything that I have talked about and paste it for me.

The possibility of this happening scares the hell out of me.

I want to meet a fresh man (if that even makes sense to you).

I want to build something with someone that hasn’t read anything about me.

Somebody that really wants to know me without the handout that I have created on here.

I want somebody that finds me interesting enough to want to pay attention to every detail of my being.

A man that will compromise for me.

I just hope that I find him, but if I don’t, trust life to always move on.

After all… love is not for everybody.

Ka emesia!

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This is not even an announcement anymore because I have made like five notes concerning this individual.

From the way that I have been going on and on about everything that I have done since I met him.

You will think that we have had a deep conversation or something.

Which is funny because I don’t even know his name.

His number is currently saved as Mr.stranger.

I had plans of asking him his name when he calls me in the evening but he didn’t call me back as promised.

So,Yea...

I just pray that he doesn’t have substack because if he’s actually active on substack and he finds my account.

I will kill myself(I’m kidding shaa).

I have been battling with the urge to not write about this particular encounter but I couldn’t.

As a writer that writes to escape from whatsoever life throws her.

I will just leave this one here as a means of survival.

It’s almost two months since I came to Abuja with the sole purpose of changing my environment and settling here.

I have kinda of shared all my encounters and experience with y’all(My subscribers).

I have met men or should I just say that, men have met me both in the pharmacy and outside the pharmacy.

To some of them I have given my number,

To a good number of them, I have blocked a few days later because they were disturbing my peace or should I just say that it has a lot to do with the fact that I didn’t really like them or we didn’t just click.

To some of them I was bold enough to say No to.

Tell me why I was sitting in the pharmacy on a random Friday, tired of everything.

Waiting for 5pm so that I will just go home when this particular man of concern entered the pharmacy.

Asked the security for the pharmacist and he was directed to me.

He walks towards me,I greeted him then he pulls his phone towards my direction because somebody else was on the line telling him the drugs that he should buy.

I will later find out that,it was his brother.

I gave him everything that he asked for.

Wrote the prescription for him on each of the drugs packet.

He even yabbed my pen in the process.

Mind you,

He had already asked me for my number even before I started writing the prescription.

I was this close to saying “No” that it’s against our policy but I found myself inputing my phone number in his phone.

I’m sure that my boss saw me through the cctv camera but it’s what it’s.

When I give people my phone number especially Abuja men,I don’t look forward to their calls.

I don’t really care and that’s because they are bad pr about Abuja men flying around everywhere.

Whether they call or not is not really something that I worry about.

Guess who was constantly checking her phone to avoid missing his call.

Me, Sopuruchi.

I hate this version of me

I don’t like her at all.

That version of me that falls in love.

The version that is suddenly helpless when it comes to the man that she loves.

That version of me that cares about what he thinks about my personality.

This might come off as a joke but I’m damn serious.

Falling in love makes me weak.

And that is one of the reasons why I avoid being in a relationship like plague.

And before you say;”Oh, you just met this man so what is this all about?”

Just chill.

I don’t love him yet but I feel like I like him and it’s too obvious.

There are a lot of things that he does that I find attractive already especially the fact that he texts in lower cases(i.e small letters)

I see writing in small letters as something cool,ngl

I’m even scared that he might read through me.

You know the words on the street nah…

“If a man finds out that you are interested in him or that you love him more than he loves you,he’ll show a good proportion of shege”.

He called and we spoke for roughly an hour and the whole time, it was as if we have known each other for long.

I don’t even want to jinx the whole thing by writing about it or even talking about it but I kept on thinking,”what if he doesn’t get back to me?”

“What if he ghosts me”

“What if he thinks that I talk too much?”

Omo....I dey go through a lot.

When he asked me if I was in any relationship and said that he was going to sing a love song for me by November.

It made me smile.

And even though I asked him ,why he will wait till November and his answer made me smile.

I still feel like I will be ghosted because it has been 16 hours since we last spoke.

Here I’m ,sitted on a couch by 03:00 am writing about a man that might have even moved on from me

“end of the world” by Ariana grande have been on repeat for over an hour now.

Whether this ship will sail or not is what you and I will later find out about.

I will update you.

That’s exactly the statement that I heard in the background before deciding to act on it.

Whether I did or not is something that you will find out before you even finish reading this newsletter.

My name is Ann, and my boyfriend’s name is Joel (take note).

“Threesome ke… God forbid.”

“I will never engage in such an act.”

“Sex should be between two people, that’s how it was originally designed.”

“Threesome? What does it mean?”

So many people fuss about threesome, while a good number of people don’t even know what it’s.

So, I will start with the definition.

Wikipedia defines threesome as “a sexual interaction between three people whereby at least one engages in physical sexual behaviour with both the other individuals.”

I have heard people talk about threesome, I have seen it in books, movies, but it’s not something that I have ever found appealing.

Whether it has something to do with my faith more than it has something to do with my preference is something that,I cannot really lay my hands on but the church condemns it.

And this is not me saying that I think the people that enjoy threesome and find it thrilling are doing something wrong, ooo. I’m just making my own claim based off of preference.(that’ll like to believe😪).

Me not finding threesome as a type of sex method that I will ever engage in might have a lot to do with the fact that I don’t really like sharing.

Or should I just say that I don’t really like when there’s a third party in the room.

I have created a good number of scenarios around it in my head, but every time that I think about threesome, the picture that plays out in my head is always two men with me in their midst.

Sex is a very important activity to me, and as somebody that won’t even allow somebody that she’s not in a romantic relationship with to touch her, threesome is quite out of the line for me.

I like being in the room with him (my man), knowing fully well that all his attention is on me.

Having sex with him, knowing fully well that he will hold me with both hands and focus on me alone, is part of the game for me.

A good number of my friends and acquaintances have engaged in threesome, like once or even twice.

The way they talk about it, with so much light in their eyes, will make you want to give it a try.

I remember Ginika saying that one of her married aunties and her husband doesn’t joke with threesome.

She went on to say that her aunty was the reason why she even thought about giving it a try in the first place, and for the whole of that day, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Two married people brought a stranger, or even a friend (I don’t care), into their matrimonial home to join them in their sexual activity.

I couldn’t just wrap my head around it.

I couldn’t move past the conversation, so I brought it up again the following day.

But this time around, I asked Ginika the gender that they normally bring in, and she said both genders, depending on their mood.

She even said that they do rotate it. Like: “A man this month, then a woman the following month.”

I fought really hard to try and picture myself in that setting, but I struggled.

Imagine my boyfriend saying that we should do a threesome, then he goes ahead and brings another girl in, and while we’re at it, I will be giving him head while the girl is doing the kissing and all. The thought of it alone made my mind skip.

Neverrrrrr… me, Ann, engage in a threesome? I won’t.

“I can’t share my man,” I had said the day that Uju was advising me to try it, that I will like it.

“You know it doesn’t have to be a man and two women, it can be two men and one woman.”

“You will get all the attention from both of them, while one is sucking your breast, the other one is giving you head.”

It looks promising and tempting, but nah, I will pass.

Joel will never agree to that. Somebody that gets so jealous when I talk to another guy for too long will definitely not be able to stand watching another man give me head in his presence.

Coupled with the fact that a good number of these third parties tend to do more than intended.

They will always go for the bigger portion, leaving your partner with the less interesting part, like kissing and the rest.

I know this because I have noticed the pattern in most of the books and movies that I have read/watched, especially “Gossip Girl.” The third party that joined their relationship kept getting the juiciest part of the whole sexual activity.

The girl felt left out at a point because this particular man that joined them kept on kissing her man, penetrating him, without giving the girl an opportunity to even enjoy sex with her man.

The only thing that she got was the sucking and fondling of her breast that her man did in the initial part.

At a point, these two men started meeting behind her back to have sex, and she was really hurt.

That’s why Vicki Vantoch said in her book titled “The Threesome Handbook”, and I quote: “Don’t focus so much on the new person that you forget your supposed pattern.”

There is a look on your face 😂. I’m not even there with you, but I can feel it. That “there is a book like that” kind of face, coupled with the “why were you reading that in the first place” kind of face.

Just chill… I will explain.

On the 26th of March 2024, Joel had walked into my apartment looking all worried and excited at the same time.

Knowing the kind of person that he is, the kind of person that barely talks unless you bulge him and literally drag the problem out of his mouth, he won’t say anything.

So I did what I’m best at, I probed him till he finally brought the cat out of the bag.

If only I had known, I would’ve actually left that particular cat in the bag. This particular dog was supposed to be left lying.

Joel had suggested that we do a threesome.

You need to see the look on my face. I was so shocked, I couldn’t even hide my facial expression.

He went on and on about how I will enjoy it, how it will spice things up, and everything, but I wasn’t having it.

I told him to give me time to actually think about it, and for days I kept on wondering if I wasn’t enough for him.

It would have been a different thing if the threesome that he wanted us to have was between him, one other man, and I, but nah. He was initiating the two-women-and-him troupe.

I remember crying that night, and in the midst of my confusion, that was when I found this book that made me understand that my partner wanting a threesome has nothing to do with me not being enough.

That it had more to do with exploring and wanting to spice things up.

To the honour of man, I was able to finish the book, which included how to invite a third party and the type of people that you should avoid while choosing a three-person troupe.

I ended up reading the book for the sake of knowledge, because my mind remained the same even after reading it.

I was still not ready to share.

I was still not comfortable being in the same room with a third party while my partner and I are having sex.

I sent Joel a long message telling him why I won’t be engaging in what he asked of me. I even went on to say that I will understand if he ends the relationship, because I’m not yielding to his desire.

And it should be that simple.

Nobody should rope you into something that you don’t want to do.

I’m not sharing this story with the intention to convince you to try threesome, neither am I trying to advise you against giving it a try.

I just hope that you will read this newsletter and see that I’m not writing from a religious perspective.

Having sex without being married is an act that the church frowns at too.

Meaning that which ever route that any of us take amongst this two is still considered a sin.

My take and my refusal to agree to what Joel proposed has a lot to do with preference.

I find it fascinating and all, but nah.

I know how many times I have imagined myself between two men that I gave my consent to, but just like the vacation that you and your friends keep planning… it has never left the group chat.

Will my relationship with Joel suffer the outcome of my own preference? I don’t actually know.

It’s your turn— is threesome something that you will ever consider?

And if your answer is “No”, Why?

Authors Note:

A fictional story with fictional characters except the name of the author and her book.

I cannot promise you that this particular newsletter will be void of explicit information, so to be on a safer side, kindly scroll.

A good number of people don’t like engaging in any form of discussion before and after sex.

I find people like that very awkward.

You know that saying that, “Who will say that his/her mother’s food is not sweet?” That’s how I feel about my preference.

Does it have anything to do with the fact that I have main character syndrome? I can’t actually tell, but I like what I like, and I cannot never picture myself doing the do with a man that loves me in silence.

The thought of it alone makes me shiver.

Let’s picture the scenario together:

We’re seeing a movie together, or even having a conversation that leads us into kissing, then from there we will just step into the bedroom.

Pull off our clothes and start having sex.

No sweet talk, no permission, no dirty talk. We will just hit each other’s G-spot and lie down on the bed like that and wallow in the awkwardness that is circulating around the room.

Tufiakwa… Chukwu ajụ.

I will not recommend this particular method for my enemy (even though I don’t have any).

My ideal method of making out or even having sex will always involve discussion before and after sex.

1. Before the Sex

In this aspect, I will like to include whatsoever we were doing that led to the whole kissing and romancing.

Kissing with your eyes closed is the normal thing to do, I know, but opening my eyes in between the act to make sure that he’s invested in the act of kissing me is a necessary act.

We will talk about anything at this point. It could be about our lips.

How it felt against each other. Whether we enjoyed kissing each other.

“Do you like the way that I put my tongue in your mouth?”

“Where should my hands be when I’m kissing you?”

“Is it okay for me to massage your ass in the process?”

All these things are what we will talk about.

There will be room for us to talk about everything and anything.

While a good number of people are of the opinion that interruption like this will make them not to be in the mood again, I stand to disagree with them.

And that’s because a good number of them that say things like this have never tried this particular method before.

They are so used to the norm that they feel like this particular method will waste their time or is not necessary.

Communication will always be the top priority of any activity. Imagine being entangled in a kiss with your romantic interest, and from time to time they are asking you how you feel and if they should continue what they are doing to you.

Do you know how sexy that can be?

It’s still in this stage that you and your partner are going to talk about the particular sex style that both of you want to initiate or even start with in the bedroom.

2. During the Sex

A good number of you are going to say that talking while at it will make everything awkward or even make the urge to disappear.

Some people argue that the only noise that should be coming out from the other room is either a moaning sound from your woman, or even that clapping sound that occupies the room when you are penetrating her from the back (I refuse to say “hitting” because it sounds ridiculous in my ear).

I’m here to disagree and reinstate my own claim: nothing beats all those small talks, aje! Moaning is good, especially when it’s the man that’s allowing himself to moan out loud without trying to play this whole masculine chief lord.

There is a law somewhere that says, and I quote: “If you are the one moaning instead of her, then you’re not man enough.”

So you can imagine how tiring sex can be when you’re doing it with somebody that’s suppressing their feelings or how they are supposed to react, in order to avoid coming off as weak.

Talk your talk, jaree. Engage him. Let him ask you if he’s getting it right.

“Am I hurting you?”

“Am I doing it the way that you like it?”

“Should I continue?”

“Am I holding it the right way?”

“Is my weight on your body?”

All these questions should be incorporated and entertained.

I don’t know for any other person, but it goes a long way to show that they care about you, and that how you feel is more important to them than whether they are satisfying their

3. After the Sex

This particular category has a lot to do with outcome.

How the whole activities made you feel.

The part that you enjoyed the most.

Your favorite position, and the position that you did not really enjoy like that.

You and your partner should not get to this stage without making sure that none of you is being pleasure deprived, but it’s still important to ask her if you satisfied her.

Before you come for me, I’m not saying “her” because it’s only women that should be pleasured, but because 90 out of 100% of the time, it’s always the woman that doesn’t reach climax.

This is not a sexual guide, per se.

If this pattern is not something that you fuck with, it’s still very much okay.

In all you do, just make sure that your partner is comfortable and wants to have sex with you before penetration. And remember, “No” will always be a complete statement.

There is nothing like;”A woman’s No means Yes”

Ke emesia…

I know that you are smart, and because you have a sharp brain, I can swear that you were able to see through the sarcasm that the title of this newsletter carries.

It’s supposed to be the other way round, but I would rather not feed you with my hand.

Which is the reason why I’m handing the spoon over to you.

The bowl is right there in front of you. Scoop as much as your mouth can carry.

If this was 2007, then I would have been a little girl, and some of you would have been babies. Heheheee. I would have been in the sitting room watching “Destined Kids,” because unlike a good number of you that grew up watching Disney and the rest, I wasn’t offered such luxury.

It was Destined Kids, Chinyere Udoma’s music video (those types where God sent down fire and consumed an individual with two horns and body soaked in black paint you already know that it’s the devil), or nothing.

My mom never allowed me to watch any Nigerian movie without her guidance. You know how most of these movies always came in with intros like, “This movie is rated PG-13, parental guidance is advised”? My mom took that particular instruction personally.

You can imagine the joy that was in me when I was introduced to Philippine and Korean movies in boarding school.

I would later come home, and instead of saving money to buy Nani Boi novels, I started buying discs. A good number of you can relate. We all bought discs and even borrowed some from our friends. At a point, we started renting them out for 20 naira per disc.

Why is all this genesis important?

Because I want you to know that, growing up, I wasn’t even given the luxury of watching all these movies that contained kissing scenes with my parents, or even alone. This part is very important because it will create a reasonable route for the second part of this newsletter.

I didn’t watch movies that involved me closing my eyes when the characters started kissing, but I read Everywoman when I was 12.

If you know about “Everywoman”,then you will know that reading it at that age was a bit problematic.

If you don’t know about the book, kindly ask Google.

This book had information about the woman’s body, starting from adolescence to womanhood. Every phase of a woman’s anatomical growth is in that book.

It contains sex positions too (there are many styles that I’m yet to try, shaa).

When I find the LOML, and he is very good at bedroom activities…we will use the positions in that book as a guide.

I digressed, I know but you should be used to my uncoordinated method of writing by now.

My uncle was the one that bought that book for me, and because he didn’t give it to me in secret, I read that book in public without any form of fear or guilt.

Even in front of my mom. Reading it in front of my dad was a piece of cake, because he barely pays attention to the type of books that we read.

His major concern is that you’re reading your books, and it makes him happy to see us reading.

My mom, on the other hand, is an investigator, but because I didn’t see this particular book as something that should be hidden, I didn’t really care.

She later found out about the book and what it entailed, seized it, but my uncle told her to give the book back to me.

In his defense, if I was going to be a gynecologist, then it’s better I start reading gynecology-related books.

Yes…there was a point in my life that I didn’t really know the career path that I wanted to settle for.

I wanted to even be a lawyer at a point.

I read that book from the beginning to the end, and nothing about me changed.

It didn’t make me hypersexual. I still looked at boys with the same eyes that I was using to look at them before I read the book.

I can beat my chest and say that I had a proper sex education growing up because of that book. That book was the reason why I was really not in a haste to have sex with anybody.

And this is not me saying that you need to read a particular type of book before you can decide whether you should have sex or not.

This is my attempt at saying that sex education should not be isolated.

That book taught me everything that I know today about safe sex.

Sex is not something that should be kept in the dark. Not talking about sex, or not displaying it in movies, won’t make people stop having sex.

We are all sexual beings. Your decision to not have sex, or even talk about it, is not something that should be imposed on every living human out there.

A good number of us act so oblivious when topics about sexual intercourse or how a woman should be pleased are brought up, but we participate in it in secret.

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When it comes to displaying sex in movies, Nollywood doesn’t even go into details like the Americans, so I’m yet to understand the whole fuss over Uzoamaka Power’s movie.

Nobody is forcing you to see movies like that. Most of you complain like a gun was pointed to your head, that if you don’t watch that you will be executed.

The same way, it’s okay for you to avoid newsletters that contain explicit content.

I’m yet to watch Christian Grey. My reason for not watching it has nothing to do with the content of the movie — I just don’t want to watch it. You see, you can actually decide not to watch a movie, and nothing will happen.

“Why are you adding sex scenes in movies that children are watching?”

Helloooooo.

Children are not supposed to be watching any movie that doesn’t have “PG-13 or even PG-6” written on it.

There are movies for different ages.

You don’t expect every movie that’s put out there to be children-centered. There are movies for kids.

The only time eyebrows should be raised is when the said movie that is children-centered contains what is not meant for their age.

A good number of things that have happened, and are still happening, in Africa will definitely not happen if sex education was a priority in this country.

If sex wasn’t treated as something that people should never talk about, a good number of teenagers would not be dealing with unwanted pregnancy and numerous cases of incurable STIs.

I will say it again and again, even if it means saying it 1,000 times: talking about sex, writing about it, is not the reason why all the atrocities happening around sex are happening. It’s the other way round.

we talk less about sex for a society that is having sex almost every minute.

I’m not trying to excuse the pedophiles that are supposed to be electrocuted to death. I will never ever understand the reason why a full-grown adult will look at a child and have his/her way with that child.

My point is that a good number of children were sexually abused by these pedophiles, and they didn’t even know till they grew up and people started talking about it.

Because of the neglect surrounding sex education, many children, especially girls, couldn’t even tell their parents that a man fondled their vagina. A good number of them even felt like it was normal. These disgusting individuals did a whole lot of disgusting things to children because there was no information.

“Information is power” is one of the greatest quotes to ever exist.

I won’t say that my mom did her due diligence when it comes to sex education, ooo, but one thing that my mom taught me as a growing child, right from when I was two, is that:

“The minute a man carries me and puts me in between his laps, that I should come down.”

“That I should not allow any man to open my clothes or even touch my vagina.”

“That if any man ever tells me to hold what he’s using to pee, that I should refuse.”

I know that I had little to no power as a child. If a man wanted to sexually assault me, he would have had his way with me, but it wouldn’t have been smooth, because he wouldn’t have been able to blackmail me into keeping quiet.

And that has a lot to do with the fact that I already knew that it’s a wrong thing, coupled with the fact that my mom already created a safe place where I can easily tell her about it.

If I ever decide to give birth to my own kids, I will never isolate sex education the way a good number of parents did. I will not tell my girl child to call her vagina “Ike” (nyash).

But before then, let’s discuss sex in a relationship, or even in marriage.

If I should ever find myself in a romantic relationship that involves me being sexually active with my boyfriend, or even husband (maybe), we’re going to talk about anything and everything without shying away from anything or trying to sugarcoat things.

He is going to listen to me put him through the things that please me, and I will do the same for him as well.

One thing that we will not ignore is talking about how a particular sexual encounter made us feel — things like, “Did I satisfy you?” “Was I careful enough?”

All these after-questions won’t erase the fact that he has to confirm if I’m comfortable with any move that he wants to make on me first, before initiating it. I will definitely do the same for him as well.

That way, we can easily tell when our energy in the inner room is changing or drifting away from what it used to be.

We will notice the minute things are no longer going well in our sexual lives and tackle it immediately.

I have a lot of things to add to this list, but I will include them in my next newsletter, titled “Discussions That I Will Have Before Sex.”

I’m not campaigning that every discussion, movie, or even music should be about sex, ooo because e no dey hard una to generate another meaning and run along with it.

I’m just saying that a little sex education, safe-sex-themed movies and articles, won’t definitely hurt, and it’s okay if you don’t even want to see “se” anywhere, talk more of “sex.”

What’s not okay is trying to police us into doing things your own way.

Ka eme sia.

Quoting my ex in any of my newsletters should be a crime at this point, but I actually do not have a choice.

As long as this particular topic is concerned, Eze will be at the forefront of it all. He is the only person, apart from my mom and my uncle’s wife, who has ever told me that love without money is trash.

They didn’t necessarily say it’s trash.

They were just trying to make me understand that a romantic relationship without money will definitely not flourish.

“Even if it should flourish, there will be so many limitations.” That’s my mom’s take.

“A romantic relationship without money is not something that I will ever subscribe to, and I have numerous reasons why I will never get into a relationship without money.” That’s Eze’s POV.

We will look at all the points that he gave, but before then, it might interest you to know that my uncle’s wife doesn’t even want to hear that you’re in a relationship with a man that doesn’t have money.

The same way she doesn’t even want you to go into any relationship without having your own money.

That explains why she got married to an Odogwu (my uncle) despite being an Odogwu herself.

I have been single for over a year now.

After my previous relationship ended, I made a decision not to date anybody till after a year.

I didn’t just decide not to date because it is fun or just to feel among.

Nah… that’s not the reason why.

Apart from the fact that I wanted to focus on myself, one of the reasons why I decided to give dating a break was because I was broke.

*rolls eyes in amusement.

Yesssss….Not being in a relationship because you are broke is valid like mad.

I went from being a rich university kid to being a broke stay-at-home “half-baked graduate,” according to my friend.

I needed a job more than I needed oxygen (I’m kidding sha, but you get the gist). Being in any form of relationship was the least thing on my list.

Men asked me out. They wanted to date me.

Some of them even wanted to marry me.

The question on the table is definitely not “why” but “why not.” I’m a fine girl, a pharmacist.

There’s a lot of things these men have considered before deciding that I’m fit to be their wife.

One thing men will not do is put their head, or even their hand, where they will not gain, which is not a bad trait sha, because I have inherited that particular trait as well.

If I won’t gain anything from you, especially as my love interest, I won’t even give you a chance in the first place.

When Mr.Bee said that he wanted to marry me, I laughed so hard till my tummy started hurting.

I kept on thinking to myself, how do I become a wife with just 200 naira in my Moniepoint and 2,600 in my UBA.

My Netflix, Canva, and Spotify subscriptions had already expired when this particular man was telling me he would rent an apartment for me in Enugu when it was time for me to do my internship.

“When next I come to Enugu, I will take you to Zee. I want to change your wardrobe.”

“Can I get the exact measurement of your waist? I want to make a few outfits for you.”

Mr. Bee is a fashion designer who has one of the biggest fashion stores in Aba.

He’s really good at what he does.

He literally went from having nothing to being rich, rich, all thanks to how good he is at fashion designing. I’m proud of him. Even my mom knows that I’m proud of him. I like when people really lock in and build something for themselves.

This same man, who took his financial life from zero to millionaires, was asking me to be his wife, and saying “yes” was definitely going to be a crime on my part.

What do I even have that will prompt me to say yes? Notice how I’m not saying, “What do I even have to offer him?” because I have a lot of things to offer him that have nothing to do with sex and finance, but I didn’t want to be that kind of woman.

When I love a man, or should I just say, when I’m in a relationship with a man, I buy him things, no matter how small.

Buying things for him on his birthday should be something I’m able to do. I should not just be collecting and collecting without giving back.

Apart from spoiling him with monetary gifts, I should be financially buoyant before being in a relationship, talk more of getting married.

I should be able to do a good number of things for myself without having to wait for a man to do it for me.

That doesn’t mean I won’t chop his money… I will, but being a big woman on your own, with or without a man, breeds a certain level of respect.

I’m not saying you need to have money before a man can respect you… nah, that’s not the area I’m gunning for, and I hope you understand me.

A man who will disrespect you will still do so with or without money. That’s a fact.

I’m only saying that two broke people in a romantic relationship is kind of pathetic.

And just like Eze said, in the points he gave, he said:

“If I’m broke and you’re broke, we won’t be able to express our love for each other properly. If you’re celebrating your birthday and I don’t even have money to buy you gifts or take you somewhere nice, you will definitely get tired of hearing just ‘I love you very much’ one day.”

“If we’re broke and it leads to marriage, where we’re constantly feeding from hand to mouth, how will we be able to make out properly on an empty stomach?”

He went on to say that if we had a child and the child fell sick, and because we didn’t have money the child died, did I think we would still be in love with each other? He answered his own question by saying, “We will definitely despise each other.”

I was 18 years old when he told me this, but it has been on my mind ever since.

It’s one of the reasons I didn’t date until I was in 300 level going to 400 level.

I was jobless, but I had funds. At least I was able to buy a birthday gift for my boyfriend then.

I wasn’t able to date a boy in the same level as me,because of the things he told me, I knew there was no way any of my level mates would have had adult money.

This whole situation between Mr. Bee and I was happened December last year.

I remember telling him I wasn’t ready for marriage yet, and he was like, “We can be dating till you’re ready.”

I knew that telling him I wasn’t ready to be in a relationship yet would sound weird, because he knows that I like him.

He has seen the way I look at him, how I talk to him, and how he makes me laugh. He shot his shot because he knows that I was interested.

I had no other choice than to come clean.

I told him the reason I wouldn’t be dating him yet, and he said, “I already have all the money you need, and besides, I don’t really mind whether you buy me gifts or not.

The most important thing is that we’re dating and I love you.

I will do anything for you, name it. I will even fly you abroad for your master’s, if you permit me,just that you have to be pregnant with our baby before you travel.”

The saxophone got louder, shey? That was when I knew I’m not supposed to be found anywhere close to any form of romantic relationship without money.

Even if my man has the money, I should have mine too.

I should be able to fly myself abroad without having to get pregnant first, so that he won’t tell me to give him doggy (God knows how much I hate that style) after changing my wardrobe.

So that I can easily say, “Your gift comes with a condition ke? Take it back, osiso.”

So yes… a broke man or woman has no business being in a romantic relationship. Anywhere you catch them, break their legs and bring them to me.

Even if it’s me that you catch,break my legs as well.

A good number of people will say that you don’t really need money to be in love,

You are free to agree with them.

That’s their own perspective and this is mine.

And that’s because you cannot keep taking and taking without giving.

A pack of singlet and boxers is no longer cheap unlike before.

The economy is no longer favorable to the people that have the money talk more of those that don’t have shishi.

The worst of it all is when none of you even have enough to use for themselves talk more of giving another person.

And in case you’re wondering why I made this note and suddenly went quiet about the whole thing, just know that the said individual, who I’m two months older than, is the one paying his house rent.

Baba is literally a founder. I got a handful of information about him and declared myself “not qualified”before anybody else could.

I have nothing in my name yet. I cannot even chest a bill of 200 k yet.

The only thing that is even making me happy is the fact that Pay day is this week.

Is it from this my monthly salary that is not even enough to sponsor my lifestyle in Abuja because I’m saving half of it that I will use and spoil my sweet boy?

Kà emesịa nụ.

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Swear……swear that I’m the best thing that has ever happened to you, you liar.

That would have been my reply, but this stupid girl is here blushing with the red and white floor that he got her.

Valentine never pass?

Flower that you’re supposed to dump in the trash can.

See how you are holding it like as if your life depends on it.

It’s not like the flower will run away if you hold it with one hand.

I just hope that you will read this piece and be able to see through my lens, how valid the hate that I have for relationship people is.

If you’re intelligent enough, then you will be able to see through my jealousy.

I’m just a singlet that kind of wants to be in pairs.

I deserve my own sweet boy too.

A tall, dark and handsome man that cannot live without me.

My own lover boy that showers me with gifts and thoughtfulness.

Somebody that will make me patronize footwear vendors.

I was this close to ordering this beautiful footwear for men, but I remembered that I don’t have a man.

My favorite part about being in love is the companionship.

Waking up everyday, going about your day knowing fully well that there is somebody on the other end waiting for the full details about how your day went.

The good morning messages.

The constant reassurance that they love more today than they did yesterday.

Love is such a beautiful thing, but Haba…

Why should you allow a man hold your hand like that?

I see a good number of you write or even talk about the men that you love, and it makes me shake my head in pity (jealousy really does come in different forms).

Y’all act like your man is the best thing after plantain, but he’s not.

Tell that your man that I said that he is a small boy.

All these things is what I would have said if I was a full-blown hater or even a human being that doesn’t know what being in love entails but I’m not.

If this was 2019, then I would have been in secondary school (an all-girls boarding school).

I would have helped Jane, Diutó and Lovina to write the love letter that a day student will deliver to their boyfriends in our brother’s school (another boarding school for only boys).

Those day students would have taken the letter home, opened it and read the content before handing it over to the supposed owner.

I wrote a good number of those letters while thinking about my crush, M.

To each letter, I used a different approach.

And when the letter that I wrote gave birth to a box filled with gifts, I never got even a pinch of chocolate from inside.

Relationship people are wired that way.

You shelter them from the rain, but the minute their lover shows up, you are another helper on the street.

That’s one of the reasons why I charged for those letters.

Knowing fully well that I won’t be in the picture when their man visits them with a box of gifts or when they’re talking about the love letter that I wrote during the break.

So none of you can squeeze me in your relationship?

That would have been the caption of this newsletter, but nah….I don’t want to be squeezed, I want to be the captain of my own ship.

The ship that I will find myself in will definitely not be like you people’s own.

Y’all talk about your partners a lot, but I will do more than that.🌝

If a sweet man ever comes my way…..I will do more than intended.

I won’t make my diary about him because I’m a selfish mf that is quite obsessed with myself, but y’all will know when I’m being loved the right way.

For my next relationship, him being an artist is at the topmost part of my list.

There’s how an artist that loves drawing captures the women in his life.

I deserve to be captured that way.

I want to look at the portrait picture of myself that he made and immediately feel his eyes on me.

“Hiya…. Is this piece not supposed to be a diss towards relationship people?”

It’s…

We are still in the right track, but killing two birds with one stone is actually my thing.

If I don’t have it yet, then talking about it should not actually be a crime.

I will gun for a man that can cook because breakfast in bed is really my thing.

“Ifemí, I made breakfast,” with a thick and defined bass.

You will think that my name is Ifemelù or even Ifechukwu.

Nobody is even answering these names in my extended family as a whole.

You will turn around and discover that I just bagged myself a Yoruba man that calls me dearing names in Yoruba.

There’s no time that I have ever thought about being in a relationship that I didn’t think about being loved the right way.

That’s one of the reasons why seeing a girl that is being loved in the most beautiful way ever makes me happy.

It goes a long way to prove the possibility of getting the type of relationship that I desire.

The one where he is so much invested in everything that I want to yap about.

A relationship where I’m very much centered.

A man that doesn’t think I’m too much.

That won’t say things like; “There’s a confrontational part of you that I’m scared of.”

Somebody that doesn’t run away from difficult conversations.

Having all these thoughts and imagination while still knowing that there’s every possibility that you may never experience the kind of love that you deserve is the reality check that you need.

It’s not everybody that will actually find love.

It’s a scary reality, but that’s just the truth.

But if you ever find yourself gravitating towards love,

Make sure that you’re doing it with a man that really likes you.

A man that is not the breadwinner in his boys group. (This particular one is really important.)

His position in the boys group plays a huge role in determining how long the relationship will last.

If he’s their ATM card or the one that feeds them, then your relationship with that man will definitely be shaky because, to those boys, you are trying to steal their man and they won’t allow it.

No matter how much he loves you, the role that he plays in the boys’ life is a very strong determinant.

I hope that the next time that you will find love, it won’t be with a partner that secretly hates you, somebody that hates your audacity and wants to break it.

If you ever find the kind of love that you deserve before next year’s girlfriends day, don’t forget me that was there for you.

I’m not a greedy girl, so,

Three chocolate and one roll from your money bouquet will do.

As for all of you that are already in a relationship where you are actually being loved the right way… Take it easy on us the singles.

Don’t pepper us much ejoř.

Happy girlfriend’s day my babies.

Ngwanù ka Odi!

If you don’t know her, don’t worry. I’m about to do a quick, quick introduction.

Her full name is Chinasa Anukam. She’s a storyteller and a creative director. She’s the host or should I just say, the owner of the podcast, Is This Seat Taken?

From the title of this particular newsletter, you already know that this piece is not about Chinasa, neither is it her biography.

But a few days ago, Chinasa was on a podcast with up to five men, and the topic that was up for discussion was practically how every girl out there has either been raped, escaped being raped, or assaulted by a man, if not men.

She talked about her own experience growing up, especially as a girl that has big breasts.

How her male teacher and boys in her class harassed her, either with their mouths or even their hands.

The faces of those men as she was narrating her ordeal raised dust in the comment section.

”Every woman that I know has been sexually assaulted before. Maybe not raped, but there must have been an attempt... who are now the men doing all these things?”

This is not entirely the statement, but I obviously paraphrased.

What the people in the comment section were saying, in essence, is that every man out there knows a rapist, a pedophile maybe not as a friend but as somebody that they do hello and hi with.

A good number of women in the comment section concurred while standing on the mountain that the sign is always there, but they purposely ignore it.

If you are subscribed to me, then you would have noticed that I have made a good number of notes about my ex in the past few days.

You are probably wondering how I went from talking about sexual harassment to spotlighting my ex.

Nwè Ndidi... We will get there!

If you have ever come across any of the notes, even the one where I asked how many aura points I lost for reaching out to my ex, bring your chair close to the table. It’s about to get real.

If this was July 2025, then Ochanya’s case and the whole atrocity that these men committed against her body that led to her death had just surfaced on the internet.

I didn’t know about the story, unlike some people that knew about it. I was still in secondary school as well when everything happened, so there was no way that I would have known about it.

The case coming to light again in 2025 made me so sad. I cried so much that even my mom noticed, so I had to tell her about the case.

She was furious as well. She laid curses on Victor Ogbuja and his father. Apportioned a huge amount of blame to Ochanya’s aunty (Victor’s mother).

I remember having a conversation with my babe (now ex) back then about the whole thing that happened.

“Babe, you know that I’m a feminist.”

An intro that I used to initiate the conversation.

That was what I said to this man, and his reply was quite funny shaa.

He was like,

”I don’t have a problem with you being a feminist. I love my mother and my sisters, so I’m not against any movement that is fighting for women’s rights. Just don’t overdo it to the extent where you start hating men.”

I was so riled up that night from everything that was going on with Ochanya’s case and how Victor Ogbuja was nowhere to be found.

(I will come back to this particular statement because it adds more point to the title.)

I asked him a question that left a crack in our relationship.

Notice how I’m not saying that it led to our breakup because something else broke the shell.

“What harm has women hating men brought to their doorstep?”

And he was like,

”A good number of these women that hate men say a lot of mean things about men.”

I didn’t know that there was a term for it “misandry and misogyny”.

I found out later after I had spent time on TikTok following Ochanya’s case.

I told him that when men hate women, they molest, rape, and kill them.

I pulled up the femicide rate statistics.

I told him that if only these men that hate women were just badmouthing them, does he think that women would have been living in fear the way they do right now?

I even told him that men still badmouth women and say all manner of things about women, but guess who wants to just live?

Women.

When a woman hates a man, she stays on her own and doesn’t even want to have anything to do with him.

A woman’s hatred for a man didn’t just start existing from nowhere.

It’s a product of the things men do to women.

More like a reaction to men’s actions.

I used Ochanya’s story as a case study, and his reply to everything that I told him about what this girl went through shattered the whole table.

”Just know that what you consume has a way of influencing your mind, and the more you consume such content, the more they show up on your FYP.”

Everywhere went quiet after he dropped this particular statement.

That was when I now chipped in a tweet that I found on Twitter that said, and I quote:

”Every man on this planet Earth knows a rapist, a pedophile, or even somebody that has molested somebody in the past.”

Oga blew up the minute I said this and started saying a lot of things, but I had already achieved my aim for that night, which was to give him something to think about.

He went on and on about how he has never thought of touching a woman without her consent, talk more of looking at a child.

He said a lot of things about how his friends have worn back their clothes amidst inserting their penis inside a woman’s vagina after she said no.

He said all these things, forgetting that he once gave me a gist about how a coursemate that they used to hang out with brought a girl to their apartment and almost killed her because he was choking and forcefully having sex with the girl even after she had said that she didn’t want to have sex again.

The girl screamed and screamed, but none of these boys did anything.

It was the police that put an end to the whole thing because somebody at the party called them.

(It was like a party kind of setting.)

He held that particular statement to heart.

He was ready to make me apologize or even take back my words.

I was even this close to apologizing because I felt like my words were too extreme.

But opening my Instagram changed my mind and scattered the entire relationship.

We shared reels together, so in my Instagram inbox was a video.

(I have actually forgotten the context of the video.)

The only thing that I remember is that the comment section reeked of misogyny.

I watched that video and read the comments with so much disgust on my face.

I confronted him, and his reply was so cold that I knew that the relationship had served its purpose.

We didn’t say, “Oh... I’m not doing again.”

We just stopped talking.

Until earlier this year, when he started appearing in my dreams.

Three days ago, I decided to reach out to him and talk about it.

I had no intention of getting back together.

I just wanted to talk.

Even though, as of 3–4 days ago, everything about him that came to my mind was memories of him being sweet and romantic towards me.

I won’t lie.

He was so sweet and kind to me, actually.

But just like they say,

”Love is not just enough.”

I won’t dive so much into our conversation.

I will just attach screenshots, hoping that you understand it.

Thank God for pushing me to reach out and have this conversation.

At least now I know that I wasn’t tripping.

He still doubled down that the reason why he sent me that video was because he found it funny.

Misogynistic videos and comments are funny to him.

He knew that that particular account on Instagram is misogynistic, but he still followed them and engaged with their content.

I won’t be watering down my title or trying to explain too much.

The fact that Victor Ogbuja is yet to be found, and the fact that I can swear that he’s camping in a friend’s apartment and surviving under a friend’s identity, is already enough as proof.

Each time statements like the title that I used show up in a room, men normally put on their defensive suit.

And just like what I told my ex when he used paternity fraud as an example, I will also leave it for you folks.

Saying that all women commit paternity fraud won’t even shake me because I have not gotten married yet, talk more of giving birth.

With that being said...

If the shoe fits, then do me the honor and put your legs inside Cinderella.

Instead of putting on your defense clothes anytime that you hear this particular statement, I feel like you should actually examine your conscience, look deep into your circle, and be sure that nobody in that friendship group of yours is the person being talked about.

“What have I done as the good men in quote to ensure that the girl child is safe?”

“How many times have I held my gender accountable without trying to generate any form of excuse?”

“How many times have I cautioned a man that called a little girl,My wife?”

These are questions that you should actually ask yourself.

And just like in the case of Xenophobia.

Not all South Africans are Xenophobic but what are the ones that are not Xenophobic doing to put an end to Xenophobia?

Ka emesia.

Yes... I said what I said because what is there not to love about avocado?

Before I venture into the health benefits of this particular fruit that y’all throw hate at, at any slightest chance that you get, and look at different ways that you can actually enjoy this “Diva,”

1. Bread and avocado.

   

This particular combo makes me appreciate the Heavenly Father’s effort because what do you mean by there’s a fruit that can be eaten and also mashed and used as a bread spread?

A spread that is healthier than butter.

If gold was eatable, it would have tasted like avocado, I swear.

I show up online every day and look at all the hate that avocado is getting for being different and exceptional, and all I can do is shake my head in pity.

Amongst the people that hate avocado, the people that annoy me the most are those ones that claim that avocado is tasteless.

I see those ones as hypocrites.

Avocado can be everything but not tasteless.

This group of people make such claims, then go ahead and use margarine or even salad cream as their spread.

The hairs on my skin are already standing, but let’s quickly look at the second way.

2. Avocado and other fruits.

   

What you people normally call fruit salad.

This particular way is the most neglected way to enjoy avocado because tell me why most of these people that sell “fruit salad” add everything in that their fruit plate, even down to watermelon, but draw the curtain the minute it is time to add avocado.

A few days ago, on my way back from work, I felt like my body needed fruits as it had been long since I had one.

My decision to go for fruit salad was quite fast.

Tell me why this woman added all the fruits in the world but didn’t add avocado that was right there in her face.

I will be a liar if I say that I wasn’t surprised to see avocado on her radar.

It is not normal.

Even with a gun to most of these fruit sellers’ heads, you won’t catch them with avocado.

When I asked her why she didn’t add avocado to my plate, she was like, a good number of people don’t like avocado, so she adds it based on demand, which is actually understandable.

You need to see my face when she said that most people don’t like avocado.

That particular statement made me question a lot of decisions that a good number of you make, for real.

I don’t think anybody that doesn’t like avocado can ever make a good choice because if you had the ability to make good choices, then I wonder why you don’t like avocado.

3. Bread, egg, and avocado.

   

I won’t be spending much time on this particular category because I don’t think I have the right words to explain how this particular combo makes me feel, for real.

Avocado is what made this particular combo pop.

Some of you that don’t know what goodness is about will argue that bread and egg is fire.

You will try to sideline avocado, but you know the truth.

And the truth has a way of setting you free.

Free yourself from burden and eat good.

4. Rice and avocado.

   

One of the best in the troupe.

That’s what I would have said until I tasted avocado and spaghetti.

The best thing after good life.

I have a lot of good things to say about avocado, but I’m not here to convince you.

I’m even being careful with my words because I don’t want you to mistakenly fall in love with it.

Avocado is good with everything.

Even ordinary cabin biscuits start tasting like shortbread the minute you add avocado to them.

The aim of this particular piece is not to talk you into liking avocado.

I will never do that.

Something good doesn’t necessarily need advertisement.

It announces itself.

This piece is more of a question.

It’s more of a tool that I’m using to bring myself out of the confusion that people who claim to hate avocado put me in.

I told y’all that I see writing as a means of survival because every time that I try to wrap my head around y’all’s hatred for avocado, my head hurts for real.

“I hate avocado.”

“Avocado is tasteless.”

Statements that I will forever struggle to wrap my fingers around.

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Whichever be the case... get in jor, let’s talk.

Am I here to disagree or agree?

I’m here to do none.

Let’s just say that I came here to make a claim and also get an answer from you.

I’m currently in the office. It’s 14:14 p.m.

I’m supposed to focus on what is going on in the pharmacy, but this particular thing has been bothering me, so I decided to put it out there.

As somebody that is trying her best to write sexually infused newsletters less (that’s a lie shaa), I have been isolating sex from my articles.

Our brothers and sisters are beginning to complain (not like I care about their complaints, even though my brain registered it somewhere and pushed me into writer’s block, but here we’re).

Sex is something that will always be talked about, no matter how we try to bash people that are talking or even writing about sex.

Talking about sex is not actually the problem that we have as a society.

The major problem is actually not talking about sex, sugar-coating it, and trying to label it as something people should be ashamed of.

And this is not me saying that you should sexualize every form of discussion that somebody tries to have with you.

If we talked about sex the way that we engaged in it in private, things wouldn’t have been the way they currently are.

Sex education is something that we should have invested in, but no.

We have righteousness police that show up every day with warnings on how people should stop talking about sex or even writing about it.

A few days ago, I came across a note from a guy, and he was like, “Enough of all these articles containing details about your sexual experience,” and it made me laugh.

Who gave you the audacity to tell people what to write about and how they should share their sexual experience with the public?

we are all performers of morality at the end of the day.

Nobody has actually gotten it right.

We say one thing in public and do another thing in secret.

Our tweets and notes are always different from the type of life that we live.

Children, especially girls, are calling their vagina “Ikè (Nyash),” and you think that’s a good thing?

What the hell is “Ntanta” as in meat was used to replace the boy child’s sex organ and urinating tool(Penis).

I have learnt a lot about sex thanks to the creators that talk about sex and how their first-time experiences were.

I always felt like I was abnormal because of how much I hate penetration, till I started hearing more women talk about how penetration makes them feel.

Before now, women didn’t know that they were supposed to enjoy sex.

They felt like just lying down there and allowing the man to thrust them until he came was the right thing to do.

It took time before women started learning that a man who doesn’t care about your own pleasure shouldn’t have access to your body in the first place.

All these progress occurred because people started talking about sex.

It’s okay if you don’t want to engage with such content.

Nobody is telling you to engage with it by all means.

The block button is there because pressing “Not Interested” will never be enough.

This piece was supposed to be a fictional story about how you shouldn’t allow a man to put his dick in your mouth, but my ink flowed in another direction that needed attention.

“A man that loves you won’t put his peeing tool in your mouth.”

When people make statements or tweets like this one, I always find it funny because it is a two-way thing.

What if I want him to put his peeing equipment in my mouth?

A question that y’all have never really provided an answer to.

Giving head is definitely not my thing because I’m not good at it, and that’s because I’m always scared that I will injure my boyfriend in an attempt to give him head.

If he gives me head and enjoys receiving it as well, then I see no reason why I shouldn’t reciprocate.

Statements like this are funny because a good number of women actually enjoy giving their men head and watching his eyes roll to the back.

I have met women that live for that particular moment.

When she is on her knees, and the man is standing with his hands at the back of his head like the good boy that he is, and the woman is taking him in bit by bit.

So, when statements like this are put out there, there’s a level of guilt or even doubt that it leaves in their lungs.

“What if this man doesn’t even love me?”

“What if I don’t mean anything to him?”

It’s a different thing if it’s not something that the woman enjoys.

If it’s not something that she wants to do and her man forces her to do it, then that’s the only time there is an issue.

Inasmuch as I’m amongst the group of people that believe that giving head doesn’t necessarily mean that you should get one in return (which is a hypocritical view, by the way),

It’s hypocritical because if I give a man head, then he must reciprocate it.

I won’t even give a man head before receiving one because of a reason that you and I know about.

Why am I suddenly running around the bush about this?

The answer to this particular question is simple.

There are statements that we put out there with the intention of sounding smarter or even more righteous that end up doing the wrong job.

So yeah...

The right statement should be:

“If he forces you to put his peeing tool in your mouth, then he is not the one for you.”

And yes, people, or even writers, that include sex in their books or newsletters are not the cause of the wrongs in society.

When y’all are ready, we will really talk about what led this society into the mess that it’s currently in.

Ka emesiá.

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Tomorrow is Monday meaning that work is about to start but before I show up in the pharmacy tomorrow.

Let’s do a recap of what last week was like.

If today was Monday last week then everything would’ve already played out by this time.

The part where the bike man charged me 1500 for a place that costs 300 naira and carried me round the whole Abuja so that I will feel like the journey was worth the price.

To think that I wanted to make this bike man my regular means of transportation 😪

He was so kind and careful with me throughout the whole journey. Who would have thought.

I collected his number but after I found out that he scammed me…I never bothered calling him.

“Onwere Onye ga ahù ebe a ña ecħí ozò ga ba ebe aña akwa ugbògiri”.

kindly tell your Igbo friends to translate.

I had gone to the head office for the physical interview that will finally determine the branch that I will work in.

The interview did not later go as planned because my Oga(The owner of the community pharmacy) found out that I can speak his dialect.

My mother’s dialect has saved me again after all my night reading and preparation.

We talked about a lot of things outside of the interview,about my father,mother and the part of Enugu that I’m from.

We even talked about transportation,he was the one that casted the bike man.

Talking about salary was my favorite part of the whole discussion 🌝🫠

I remember him saying that, he made sure that he budgeted the salary that will be able to sponsor my flexing and buy skincare products for me.

This my oga self…I like his vibe.

He went on to say that,he knows how Abuja men can be and let it be that I followed one because I want to not because of money.

I resumed work on Tuesday.

Yessss…I’m not like you that will say,I can start immediately 🌚

I went back home immediately after the interview and prepared myself mentally.

Showed up the following day,introduced myself to everybody that’s working in the pharmacy especially the pharmacist 2(A very beautiful Hausa woman that’s so soft spoken)

We bonded so well,

We talked about pharmacy school and everything that we went through during the course of acquiring this degree.

It was as if both of us went to the same pharmacy school.

Our experience was so familiar.

I used the whole of Day 1 to master the position of drugs(I have not mastered it yet but I’m getting better at it).

Learnt how to use the system to make sales.

Day 2, was better than the previous day because I sold and attended to a lot of customers.

I even recommended drugs based on patient’s complaints.

The common cases were Malaria,cough and diabetes.

I like how they are always coming to me to attend to them.

I like the people that I’m working with,they’re jovial and they like me(for now)

Day 3 and 4 was quite eventful.

Day 3 was the day that a man in his late 40’s came to the pharmacy,bought condom and other things.

Tried attending to him and he was shy ,so he took what he bought to Dubem(A boy)

Day 4 was the day that a man dressed in an expensive looking kaftan,footwear,gold ring(not a golden ring oo… real gold).

He shaa looked so rich.

And I know that he is rich.

He’s probably in his late 30’s or early 40’s.

Asked if he can call or message me on WhatsApp while stretching his Samsung Z fold towards me.

I was surprised at first because I didn’t expect that he will do that.

I was able to turn him down in the most subtle way ever.

A woman that came for treatment complimented my gown and I couldn’t even hide my happiness.

Y’all know how compliments from women make me feel.

This was also the day that I finally met the pharmacist 1(A man that is probably in his early 30’s) and he wanted to finish me with questions.

Let’s not even talk about Day 5 because I’m already tired of typing.

Just know that,this said pharmacy is always busy and that ever since I started working there,that most of the men that I have attended to always have this smirk on their face.

I walk down to the pharmacy everyday knowing that I will be hearing “fine girl,good morning or how are you fine girl” from total strangers.

Monday is closer than you know and I cannot wait to show up there by 9 am and hear”Asa or Adaurè you came so early”

And if you’re the type that visits interesting places or go for conferences in Abj during the weekend,carry me along 🌚

The song that I attached has nothing to do with this piece shaa.

I came across this song on TikTok while I was writing this piece and it reminded me of my late aunt.

How much she hated poverty and how much she believed in getting things done her own way.

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“I really want to change my life.”

My mind has probably made this particular statement 3,024 times since this year.

I really need to lock in.

I desire more, and it is just insane the level of effort that I need to put in before I can achieve the type of “more” that I want.

I want to become an independent woman that actually has the level amount of money that she needs to be independent.

I keep on having these 00:52 thoughts where I’m pushed to restrategize and replan my whole life in an hour.

I want all the good things that life has to offer.

I want to travel.

I want to see the world through my own pocket.

I want to own a penthouse in one of these beautiful and busy cities.

I want to be able to buy things without looking at the price tag.

I want to buy a G-Wagon and many other beautiful cars out there.

A cozy apartment has been on my list for the longest, and it’s not cheap.

My mind keeps telling me that I have what it takes to make it happen, but the imposter that is living in my skin doesn’t really agree.

I have caught myself trying to take the shortcut countless times—or should I just call it the easy route?

Ngozi knows what I’m talking about.

Find a rich man, date him, and watch him do all these things for me.

I have had that particular thought countless times, but I end up not seeing it through.

I end up dating men that I know will not give me half of the life that I want for myself, and that is because of that particular thing in me that keeps on convincing me that I can make it happen on my own.

That thing in me that keeps on trying to escape through my nose anytime that I stop trying.

That thing in me that doesn’t want to trade her freedom for anything on earth.

I have seen relationships like that where the man has the money to spend.

He buys designers, wigs, houses, and even cars for the women that he is in a relationship with.

Sponsors their trips and vacations.

(It is always so beautiful to watch, for real.)

But just like they say, “Nothing comes for nothing.”

If you receive, then it’s proper that you reciprocate.

In a case where you don’t have the capital or even the finances to give back to who has given to you,

you end up paying with your time, freedom, body, or even peace of mind, if care is not taken.

And this is not me saying that it’s the same for everybody.

This is me saying that a good number of men that are able to go such lengths for the women in their lives end up hoarding part of your freedom, if not all.

Especially when he knows that, without him, you can never smell the type of life that he is giving you.

The gullible ones amongst them will even take charge of your own body, and even on days when you don’t feel like being intimate, they will always find a way to take it.

For men like that, they have given you everything that you didn’t know that you would ever own in this life, so how dare you say no?

It’s just like 0.02% of the population that will give you the type of life that you desire and not try to own your life.

I love my freedom so much, and an opinionated woman like me won’t last up to three hours in such a relationship.

“He who feeds you controls you” kind of shit.

That’s the reason why I turned down the man that stopped me on my way to work the other day.

Sharp car (Mercedes-Benz; don’t really know the exact type).

Has a driver.

Dressed in kaftan.

A typical Abuja man that should be in his late 30s.

That’s also the reason why I turned down the man that came to buy drugs and asked, “If he can call me,” while stretching his Samsung Galaxy Flip towards me, indicating that I should put my number.

He is a rich man in his 40s, and it was quite obvious.

Expensive perfume that filled the whole pharmacy the minute that he stepped in.

His intonation.

His fingernails.

And the gold ring that was sitting on his middle finger.

Yes, I noticed all these things because I was the one that attended to him.

Everything about him screams luxury and eloquence, but nah.

I know that inputting my number in his phone can change the trajectory of my life in two months instead of the two to four years that it will take me to lay my hands on the type of life that I want for myself.

My account balance is currently ₦5,668.

Glo has warned me that I have exhausted 70% of my data.

I don’t even know where my next subscription will come from, and I’m not even bothered.

I just know that I’m going to see the money that I will use, even if it means turning my bank account upside down.

I have never run out of data, no matter how broke I am. 

Highest, I will sell my shares and use it for data.

I’m not saying that you should not accept help from people.

That’s not the angle that I’m moving to.

I’m just saying that before you accept help from anybody, always ask yourself these questions:

Is this particular help that I’m getting now at the expense of my own freedom?

What will getting this help cost me?

Do I have what it takes to be able to reciprocate this particular help that I’m receiving from this person?

Why is this person even trying to make my whole dreams come true?

Is it because he is a Good Samaritan?

Is it because he’s in love with me?

Or is it because he wants to buy me or even try to own me?

And with Abuja rich men/Alhajis that are in their late 30s and early 40s, it’s always the latter.

I see how they look at me.

The way they ask, “Are you the pharmacist in charge?” with a smile on their face.

They know that I’m young.

They know that I have desires.

And somewhere in the midst of all these things, they believe that if they grant me those desires, they are now allowed to control my life.

I know that I have been rambling for the longest, but what I’m saying in essence is that there is this freedom, peace of mind, and joy that comes from working for this money and achieving your dreams by yourself.

It is okay to want to be chosen, to be taken care of, and all of that, but let it never be at the cost of your own freedom.

Things will be different when they know that you can afford the type of life that they are offering to give you.

Let me end this piece by saying:

“You have a higher chance of becoming a rich woman than finding a rich man that will do everything and anything for you.”

So, be at it.

Apply for jobs.

Volunteer.

Do anything that will move you 1% closer to your dream life.

Kà emesia!

I will be spending more time applying for jobs shaa who knows what I can get.

If I find one sharp opportunity, I’ll shaa put you guys on.

As for now, I’m strongly waiting for my salary to enter my hand shaa.

I was supposed to attend that Gathering of 100 that MTN is hosting in Abuja but I don’t have transport and my clothes are not ironed.

That’s the current time of the day.

I’m in a city that’s making me feel perhaps and otherwise.

A city that I’m still battling whether I should fall in love with or not.

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This piece is something that I’m supposed to have written since, but writer’s block has been dealing with me for over a week now, and it’s not yet over.

This is one of the special cases where a particular discourse bulges me and makes me restless till I talk or write about it.

I will be attaching a lot of images kindly bear with me.

If you have been paying attention to my notes, then you will not be entirely lost.

In August 2025, I walked out of a relationship.

Everybody that I have told about that particular man tagged me the problem except Angel.

She is one of the reasons why I didn’t get back together with my ex, coupled with my strong will to not go back, no matter what.

Anytime that I catch myself thinking about all the good times that we spent together, I always call myself back to order.

There were good times, and it actually lasted for long.

P.S.: This is my longest relationship ever, even though I have not dated past three people yet.

My relationships with some of these men have always been long-distance.

There is even one that I never met in real life till we broke up.

Met one of them like once, and there was never a second time.

For the purpose of this piece, I will call him “B,” and that’s because I’m actually struggling to remember his name at the moment, which is funny to me.

Maybe my brain is trying to shield itself from getting hurt...I cannot just tell.

With B, things were a little bit better.

He listened to me.

Paid attention to my needs.

I won’t say that he did everything that I asked him to do for me, but he did like 80% of all the things that I ever asked him to do throughout the time that we dated, which lasted for a year and some days.

He made sure that I was comfortable.

Loosened my hair for me anytime that I wanted him to.

Apart from the fact that he always stayed at home with me whenever I was having cramps just to make sure that I was okay, loosening my hair for me and giving me a full-body massage was the second most romantic thing that he ever did for me.

Let’s even rule out the part where he took me to a bookstore because he knows how much I love books and paid for the ones that I picked.

Let’s close our eyes to the fact that he ordered Dream Count for me online and had it delivered to his state because he knew that I wouldn’t be able to leave school to go and pick it up.

B and I had our issues. I mean, we argued and all that, just like every other couple out there, but we always found our way back.

We apologized based on who offended who.

You look at a man like B and be like, what else could I possibly want in a man?

He is tall, dark, and handsome (even though he doesn’t agree, but I feel like he’s just trying to be humble).

How calm he is with his staffs, even though the angry B is a total noisemaker, but he will definitely not insult you in the process.

He didn’t really understand writing and reading books like that, but I won’t forget how proud he was after reading one of my pieces that I wrote from the chicken’s POV.

He read The Alchemist because of me and gave me feedback.

Because of me, he started looking into reading more books.

Joined me to watch Korean movies because I was joining him to watch anime.

Anime is still not something that I fuck with, but I enjoyed watching Scissor Seven.

He also enjoyed watching Alchemy of Souls.

We talked about the movie from time to time, even when I had gone back to school.

We saw things in real life and referred back to the movie.

He would flaunt me everywhere and tell everybody that cared to know that I’m his babe, which was something that I felt he did to boost his ego.

I mean, I’m a fine babe, and you know it.

His friends knew my face more than my own friends because of how he always sampled my pictures and videos in their group chat.

A group chat where they talked about football, women, and maybe Nigeria—but mostly football.

You have probably read to this part, and you are wondering what went wrong.

I’m wondering too. 😣

I have your answer on a plate.

Relax. I will come to you, and I will serve it hot.

You know what they say about how a man can be all sweet and still be misogynistic.

Yeah.

B is a misogynistic man.

He may not know it yet, but I know.

It took time before I was able to call a spade a spade, but I’m just happy that I did.

Ochanya’s case was where I drew the line, but before then, there were side comments from him about how slim girls should not even be looked at.

A statement that I didn’t really pay attention to or should I just say that I didn’t read meaning into it.

How he slut-shamed a girl at the fine dining restaurant that we went to and claimed that she was talking to a married man, only for us to later find out that she was on the phone with her brother, who is married.

How he kept saying things like, “You will be in my kitchen, heavily pregnant,” whenever I talked about something extraordinary that I wanted to do.

And this is not to say that he wasn’t supportive of my dreams.

Nah.

He was even the person that encouraged me to start writing smut and said that the only thing people will do is talk and assume.

I just hope that you will read this piece and understand it when people say that your ever-loving father can be a monster outside.

Or this particular statement that started making sense along the line:

“How you are experiencing your father is different from how your mother experienced, or is experiencing, him as a husband.”

A pot that has cracked will definitely break one day.

How he reacted to Ochanya’s case provided me with the answer that I had been looking for.

“Babe, remember that what you interact with will keep showing on your FYP.”

That was his response to everything that I told him these men did to Ochanya.

And because I wanted us to have that conversation, I kept pushing it till he decided to say more.

He went on and on about women who hate men.

About how they say a lot of bad things about men.

He closed his statement by saying,

“Babe, don’t allow yourself to become a man-hater.”

I brought in statistics of what happens when men hate women, and he said that we should ignore others and focus on ourselves.

It might interest you to know that, as of the time that we were having this back-and-forth altercation which was in August 2025 I didn’t even know that there was a word called “misogyny.”

I had found out about “misandry” two days before we had that argument.

That’s to show you how neutral my mind was towards what was going on in society.

I was literally in a bubble.

Ochanya’s case, and the reactions from men, opened my eyes to a whole lot of things that I didn’t even know before.

The whole altercation was going to end there, but I opened my Instagram, and everything made sense in a second.

In my Instagram DMs was a reel—we shared reels together.

A reel whose main aim was to show that a man can sleep with as many women as he wants and nothing will change, but a woman cannot because her vagina will expand.

I confronted him after watching that particular video.

And even though he claimed ignorance, I knew that that was the end of an era.

Would I have forgiven him if he had apologized and said that he didn’t mean anything that he said?

Yes.

I would have actually forgiven him. Let me not even lie.

And I’m happy that he did not.

Which is the reason why I almost ran back to him when I got these messages from him.

I was this close to going back to him, but my brain replayed everything that happened, and I couldn’t help but keep him at arm’s length.

You are probably wondering why my title is saying that, and I’m here talking about my ex.

The title should have been something different, but something led to something that gave birth to that title.

A few days ago, a friend slipped back into my life.

Somebody that I had not talked to for over three years.

A guy that asked me out when I was in 100L, and I turned him down.

He came back again in my 300L, but my answer was still the same.

This is somebody that I have always considered a friend.

My uncle’s school son who visited me when I was in secondary school.

We became close.

We talked about anything and everything.

Imagine how weird I felt when he asked me to be his babe.

He is back, and his likeness for me has not changed.

A few days after I forgave him for the three years that he did not talk to me, baba was already talking about how he wants to do a lifetime with me and everything.

How he knows that I’m the one for him and how he cannot wait to build a future with me.

I entered 2026 with the conviction that I’m not going to date anybody this year.

I was so convinced that I would have this year to myself.

Let me show myself the love that I keep looking for in a romantic relationship.

I was so determined.

I have held on to this particular decision for over six months now and counting.

There were times when my desire to be in a romantic relationship almost tampered with this particular decision, but I fought hard.

That same urge to be in a romantic relationship is what is trying to scatter my decision not to be in any romantic relationship this year.

That desire to have somebody that I’m doing “baby, baby” with is the reason why I stood outside yesterday and listened to a man say things about my write-up.

That strong urge to be amongst the relationship troupe (no intended shade towards people who are in relationships I admire what you guys have) almost made me delete my Substack account until I came back to my senses and blocked him.

He went on and on about how my write-ups are extreme and about how they are not giving God the glory.

He said a whole lot of things that I don’t even want to talk about, but listening to him yesterday made me realize how much power we place on romantic relationships.

How we spend all our time fantasizing about them and hoping that a lover sweeps us off our feet, that we forget to love ourselves.

We spend so much time waiting for that man who will write us a handwritten note that we forget to write one for ourselves.

Self-love is a concept that is not really practiced, despite how people are screaming and talking about it.

That experience that you’re waiting to have with a man before you can enjoy it...

Why can’t you have it now that you are single?

Being in a relationship is beautiful.

Having your own person who makes your heart beat and fills your stomach with butterflies is a very beautiful concept, but not at the expense of who you truly are.

A romantic relationship shouldn’t be the reason why you lose yourself or even tarnish your dreams.

Trust me when I say that it’s not worth it.

A relationship that requires you to shrink or even hide a part of yourself shouldn’t exist in the first place.

You should be able to love yourself enough to know when to leave or even say,

“It was nice talking to you, but I don’t see a future with you,”

and go about your day.

Ka emesía!

If I show up at my boyfriend’s house unannounced with the sole purpose of surprising him, and he ends up surprising me instead—a moan louder than mine is coming out from his apartment.

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Will it be okay for me to book a ride, climb into the front passenger seat beside the driver without saying anything except an instruction on the type of song that he should play for me?

Will it be okay if I tell him to play “That Part” by Lauren Spencer Smith?

I know... I actually do.

It’s not the right song that you should listen to, not after you caught your boyfriend, who promised you forever, cheating.

Oh, sorry...

I didn’t catch him with my eyes.

My ears did the job.

And that’s because hearing is one thing, but confirming it with your sight might actually end you.

The best sound to play on days like this is all the songs that both of you have ever listened to together.

That way, the heartbreak will be able to marinate properly.

In Chi’s case, we had a playlist together.

Or should I just say that we still do?

I still listen to songs from the playlist that he made for us.

We were so in love.

So, we had together-time for everything.

Time for watching movies together, both physically and virtually.

Same with music.

Even bathing, down to eating.

Will it be weird if the cab man obeys my order, the song that I asked for comes on, and I hold onto the seatbelt and cry till my nose starts running?

Is it a wrong thing to do?

When can I cry?

Should I hold it in till I get to my apartment?

The one that I’m sharing with Onyinye?

How do I launch my crying gig when I get home?

Maybe I should start crying from the estate gate.

Heartbreak is not something that you should be ashamed of.

Something that hurts like crazy shouldn’t be hidden.

Why should I hide the fact that a man I imagined my future with broke my trust?

Why should I go into hiding?

Is it my fault that he cheated?

Even if I did something to him, is cheating the solution to anything?

We underestimate heartbreak so much, and it annoys me to the core.

Heartbreak can destroy you overnight or even make your life crumble within a few seconds.

“Is it because of a man that you’re acting like this?”

“Stop crying bikò. He doesn’t deserve your tears.”

“It’s his loss.”

People say all these things, thinking that they solve anything.

Bold of you to think that I’m crying because of a man.

I’m crying because my heart is aching like mad.

I’m crying because I need to ease the physical burden on my chest.

I’m crying because that’s the only way that I’ll be able to feel relief.

But when you look at it from another angle, you’ll see that you don’t necessarily have to blame them.

Advice is sweeter in the mouth of the individual who is a stranger to the pain that you’re feeling.

That was the same way that I consoled Onyi when she found out that her boyfriend of four years was getting married to another woman on Saturday, even though they had been on a call on Thursday and spoke for a long time.

It’s only the person wearing the shoes that knows where it’s pinching her.

Can I cry now?

When I manage to hold it in till I enter my room?

Will it be okay if I remain inside my room for like a month without coming out?

I know that I will not heal, but at least let me stay inside long enough till my legs can carry me outside.

I actually can.

Especially as somebody who is living in her own apartment, even though it’s shared.

It would have been a problem if I was still living under my parents’ roof.

African homes don’t have what it takes to console a heartbroken daughter or even son.

It’s even when your Nigerian mom notices that you’re being cranky or unusual that she’ll send you to go and boil rice or porridge yam.

Worst-case scenario, you’re the first daughter and child.

How do you explain your dilemma to your eight-year-old sister or brother?

how do you convince them that you’re not crying because of anything serious?

You cannot even tell your mom that you’re crying because a man or even a boy broke your heart.

She will either not take it seriously or she’ll end it with:

“Your heart is not broken in Jesus’ name.”

What do you expect her to say to you?

Not like her own mother gave her such an opportunity.

That’s even if she’s not going to ask you why you’re dating a boy in the first place instead of waiting till you’re ripe and ready for marriage.

I’m 30 years old and in a city far from home, but I cannot even tell my mom that a man broke my heart.

What will she do with such information?

While I’m here crying, she’s probably curled up in one corner, praying that I bring a man home soon.

She is somewhere begging God not to allow me bring shame to our household.

Should I just listen to “I Can’t Breathe” by Llona because that’s how I feel right now?

My chest is so tight.

I’m scared that I might have an asthmatic attack.

My inhaler is close because I know that it’s bound to happen.

It’s not like it’s a new thing.

It’s something that has happened like twice.

First occurrence: I was 18, and the boy that I had a crush on had asked another girl to be his dinner date.

Second occurrence: I was in 400 level, and my boyfriend of two years sent me a text that he was tired of the relationship.

I’m supposed to avoid relationships by all means.

I know.

You don’t even need to tell me.

Ihe bụ ihe m ma ama(This is something that I know)

But what can I do kwanụ?

I love love so much.

I love the idea of having your own person.

Having somebody who wants to hear about all the books that you have read.

Rants about how your day went.

Who got on your nerves at the office.

Chi might have cheated on me, but we had a great run.

We dated like people who really enjoyed being in a relationship.

The movie dates.

The food discovery dates.

The book dates.

The alphabetical-themed dates.

What type of date did we not go for?

There was even a time that we went on a job-hunting date while we were both actively employed.

Late-night calls na water!

Cheating is such a diabolical act that shouldn’t be normalized in any part of the planet.

It’s heart-wrenching.

It makes you question your self-worth, no matter how hard you try to be optimistic.

It’s even better that they tell you they are tired and no longer interested in the relationship or even the marriage—than engage in such a demonic act.

Inasmuch as none of these mentioned scenarios is easy to handle, cheating is one of the cruelest ways to end what people once called love.

Heartbreak is something that you don’t ever recover from.

Don’t even bother, because you will never heal.

You might forget for a while or even hate them, but it doesn’t really go away.

Which is one of the reasons why I’m advising you to stay away from love.

Don’t fall in love, no matter what.

It’s even worse when he’s a Yoruba man or an Igbo woman.

Dust your slippers and run as fast as your legs can carry you.

My name is Neche, and this is my story.

To you, my beloved, don’t ever say that I didn’t do anything for you.

And if you disobey me and he cheats on you, don’t you dare cry with your mouth open.

I’m currently watching,”Love Next Door”

A Korean movie.

There is popcorn right in front of me.

I’m not supposed to be free by this time of the day but the MD travelled and I’m waiting until he comes back.

I didn’t go to bed early so I wrote a whole lot of pieces.

The only thing that I regret is the fact that I couldn’t write the smút piece that I was supposed to write yesterday but I will try again today.

Read this one and tell me what you think in the comment section.

Should I still issue the usual warning?

contains explicit content and not for individual below the age of 18.

Don’t read if you hate sex so much and don’t even want people to write about it.

Just scroll okay….Ngwanù

One day, on a very good day, your homeboy is going to ask you out or even go as far as saying that he wants to be inside you.

It’s important that you pick your slippers and run for your life.

Not because of any other thing, but because it’s just the right thing to do.

That’s the angle that everybody has been taking—the easy route.

Nobody wants to have the difficult discussion.

Everybody is avoiding the elephant in the room.

Even though I don’t see it as avoidance.

I see it as a deliberate act.

I see it as denial.

“Oh...It’s not possible.”

“Why should you do that?”

But it happens, and most times it’s not something that you can just say, “I’m not doing this with you,” and bounce out of the relationship.

A homeboy that is handsome.

Tall, dark, can cook.

Your absolute spec in a man.

He has this sexy mustache that most of these hot men in movies keep.

Keith Powers is already somebody’s man, so you cannot obviously have him, but this your homeboy is your chance at having a face that looks like his close to you.

He is even single.

It would have been a different thing if he was in a relationship.

At least you would have swallowed your urge and moved on with your life.

And that’s because I will never be caught dead with a married man or a man in a relationship.

That’s where my own “girl’s girl” has a strong hold.

Unless I did not know, which is impossible because I don’t meet a man today and sleep with him the next day.

I’m not saying that I’m better than people who do that. I’m only saying that I really take my time.

We even run series of tests in the hospital of my choice.

Condoms are not just my thing, so you can imagine how long it takes before I can allow a man to spread my legs.

A good number of them end up not doing so because, before I can carry out all this research, I end up losing my desire to be laid.

Or even lose the attraction that I had the first time that I met them, or discover that there was never any form of attraction,

that I was just horny.

Habib and I have been friends for like two years plus.

We met on Snapchat, migrated to WhatsApp, and from there to Instagram.

I won’t say that our friendship was stable all through.

I mean, there were times that we didn’t talk for like two to three months, but when we came back together (crazy statement, mehnn not like we were dating), we talked about anything and everything.

I have grown to be open with him.

He also opened up to me, to an extent, I guess.

He was the one that started calling himself my homeboy.

It wasn’t a bad tag, so I allowed him to own it.

I started calling him my homeboy more than I called him by his real name.

But you know what they say about not hanging a bone on a dog’s neck that he will eventually eat it.

That was what happened between Habib and I.

I was at his place one of these weekends.

We were playing FIFA together.

This is something that we normally do whenever I show up at his place.

An activity that happens after he has fed me.

“I don’t want you to use hunger as an excuse when I start flogging you with scores.”

His favorite statement.

Who doesn’t know us now will think that he is the one that is always winning.

Our weekend routine was quite repetitive:

- Tell him what I want to eat on Friday night so that he will make it before I show up.

- Wait for him at the entrance of his estate so that he will pick me up. (He doesn’t like it when the security guards query me or ask me to call him to confirm that he’s expecting me.)

- Eat, drink, gist, play FIFA, and gist again.

We do go out, shaa, but it depends on how open I am to going out.

On the day that the both of us happened, I won’t come here and start acting like I didn’t see it coming. 🥲

I actually did.

The glances that we stole at each other.

The sudden discomfort that crept in when we were seeing a movie together and they started kissing or making out.

The signs were there.

We just didn’t want to talk about them.

The signs had been lingering for over six months now.

That’s the reason why, when he kissed me that day and apologized

Tagged it a mistake, I understood.

I knew that it was my turn to let him know that he was not trespassing.

I took his face in my hands and kissed him so passionately.

The most relaxed and urge-fulfilling kiss that I’ve ever had in my entire life as a 23 year-old girl.

He was in between unzipping my gown and asking me if I really wanted to do this when I introduced my hand inside his shorts.

His dick was so big and aroused.

I was horny. 😩

I have not been touched for a whole year.

I’m not even making excuses.

I allowed him to touch me because I wanted him to touch me.

It’s something that I have been nursing in my head for over four months and counting.

We found ourselves in the bedroom.

I pulled my gown over my head and lay down on the bed for him to come and join me.

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With the way his dick was hard, I was expecting that he would just go straight to the act, but I was wrong.

He dragged me to the edge of the bed and placed his tongue between my opening, and licked the lips of my punani.

That was the first time that somebody had ever used their tongue on my pussy.

The highest thing that I had ever got was fingering which was always uncomfortable; I kept adjusting and readjusting.

He found my clitoris, placed his tongue beside it, and I almost peed on my body.

It was so good.

My hands were on his head.

His hand was on my left breast, squeezing it.

My home training did leave me, and I was moaning without control.

He wasn’t rushing.

He was calm and gentle.

It was as if he had studied my G-spot many weeks before that particular day.

I kept wondering how he was able to know the exact place to put his tongue to spark a nerve.

How he kept telling me to call him Daddy.

Like, from where to where?

Somebody that I would have insulted on a normal day.

A man that I used to call “Tall for nothing.”

I always made a mockery of his abs and muscles.

That was the first time that somebody had ever used their tongue on my pussy.

The highest thing that I had ever got was fingering.

It was so uncomfortable; I kept adjusting and readjusting.

Somebody that I would have insulted on a normal day.

A man that I used to call “Tall for nothing.”

I always made a mockery of his abs and muscles.

I will never forget the day that he was trying to show me that his chest could vibrate.

Something that I found sexy, but I never allowed my facial expression to give me away.

I closed the chapter by saying, “You will later explain to us what you are doing with that type of chest.”

Silly me.

That same muscle that I ridiculed was the same thing that he used to whisk me away like a piece of paper.

He literally placed me on his shoulder and took me to his bathroom.

“I want you to be able to see our reflection through the glass and in the mirror as I’m hitting you from the back.”

“I want you to be able to see all the facial expressions that you’ll make while we’re at it.”

The old me,

Or should I say the sane me would have disagreed.

Not because of anything, but because I like being in charge.

I like when it’s what I say that is being done.

I’m more like a commander-in-chief.

That same woman is who her homeboy was policing around, telling her to place her hands on the bathroom wall.Mind you, it’s made of glass, and she’s obeying.

Fuckkkkkkkk. 😪😭

Call everybody.

Tell them that they are about to lose an instructor.

my loves,

I’m not telling you to mess up your celibacy journey. I don’t have any right to do that.

I’m just saying that you should find a way to let off steam.

Touch yourself.

Buy a dildo.

Just do something.

I don’t want you to be like me. 😪

All these things are happening because I have been touch-deprived.

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Being touch-deprived does something to your brain, especially when it’s not something that you did on purpose.

If you have not been laid because you are picky and not the type of person that just gets intimate with any available penis bearer,

it can make you go from a dominator to an “O yes member.” 😪

He made sure that I was comfortable before inserting his dick into my punani.

He kept asking if I was okay, if he should stop.

The same way that he kept telling me to keep looking at the mirror.

The facial expression that I saw through the mirror embarrassed me.

That’s not me, bíkò.

It cannot be me.

My mouth kept opening at each stroke.

My breast was pressed against the glass, but he made sure not to press me too hard.

His hands were placed over mine.

My ass was bouncing against his packs that were six in number.

A demigod, for real.

I knew that there was a level of embarrassment that was going to hit the both of us when we were done, but I wasn’t going to allow the outcome of what we were doing to get in the way of how having sex with him was making me feel.

He kept going faster and slowing down at intervals.

“Fuck... Grace, you’re such a good girl.”

A phrase that doesn’t have any business standing beside my name.

Watching him cum, his facial expression, the way he was jerking while at it.

Everything that he did to make sure that I reached orgasm as well.

The way I was moaning his name and taking it out on the innocent glass has again proven that homeboy and homegirl is just another repackaged lie.

And this is not me saying that, “It’s impossible for a man and a woman to remain friends and not explore each other’s private parts.”

This is me saying that it doesn’t always go as planned.

The woman’s mind might not go there, but what if the man’s mind flies to that zone?

What if he’s down and you’re trying to console him, and he kisses you, and things just go south from there?

What if?

Just what if?

A whole lot of “what ifs.”

I’m still standing on my point, which states that the bone that you hung on a dog’s neck might be gone the following day because he has eaten it.

I’m not in any way comparing dogs to humans, even though they are more loyal. This is just an adage.

My homeboy and I are seated in the bedroom, staring at each other without uttering a word.

In an attempt to break the silence, we both echoed, “What are we?”

And a sudden silence enveloped the room again.

If only y’all can help us provide an answer to this question.

Authors note:

It was 22:45 pm when I hit the publish button.

Do well to tell me what time you came across this piece.

Don’t forget to provide an answer to the characters question.

See ya!👋

Photo credit:Pinterest.

I added “From Eden”because that’s the song that I was listening to while writing this and coupled with the fact that it has been playing in my head since yesterday.

A movie is playing in my face.

A YouTube movie about love.

Is it not funny how much love content we consume, yet we suck at it.

A good number of you might disagree with this take, but this is a research that I have carried out and taken notes of the results.

Somebody can actually love you out of depression.

Yes, and I have seen it play out with time.

I’m also a proud member of the “come to me healed and organized” community.

We say all these things and still end up compromising.

Is that not what love is all about?

Compromise.

Doing for that special person what you have sworn not to do for anybody.

Going extra miles for them, even on days when you are tired and out of touch with the world.

And this is not me saying that you should lose yourself in the process of giving love or even receiving it.

This is me saying that if you should ever decide to fall in love, give it your all.

Be there for the woman you love.

Lend her your shoulder.

And just in case you are wondering why I’m telling you to do all these for a particular gender, then you’re quite an attentive person.

I have my reasons.

Which has a lot to do with the fact that women are very good at loving the most broken man into happiness.

They are quick to lend their shoulder.

They are always there, even when they are being pushed away.

I’m not saying that men don’t have this capacity.

My take is that, most times, it is always the woman that is utilizing her capacity.

Have I seen men love a depressed woman into happiness?

Of course.

That is why I’m writing this piece in the first place.

I have not had the best love life, but I have been in the company of a man that considered me so much.

A man that kept stretching out his hand to me whenever I’m in the dark.

I have found myself in a situation where a man was the one gingering me to try again.

Pushing me to do more for myself.

I have cried in the arms of a man, and how he held me made me calm.

The assurance that everything will be fine at the end of the day prevented me from falling into depression.

I know how Annie was always reaching out to Daniel when his business crashed.

The everyday talk and reassurance played a huge role in keeping him alive.

He wakes up every day and decides to stay alive because Annie will call him.

He hanged around even on days when the urge to end it was strong because he didn’t want Annie to call him and not get him.

If you meet a depressed woman today and decide to love her out of it, you can.

It won’t obviously go away immediately. Depression is not something that disappears overnight, but at least...

Let her wake up every day and be excited about one thing.

It will keep her going.

She will always look forward to the next day because she knows that you will call her.

She will open the door and step out of the dark cloud that is building over her head because she knows that you will stretch your hand to get her.

Anytime the urge to disappear from the face of this earth becomes stronger, she will consider how devastated you will feel when you come looking for her and find her lifeless body.

She will place a picture of what your expression will be like in her mind and refuse to give up on life.

It’s not obviously everybody that you can love out of depression, but I have seen it work more times than people give it credit for,

Am I saying that the cure for depression is love?

Please, no.

That’s not what I’m saying.

I’m just saying that it’s possible.

The important aspect of this concept as a whole is that you can only love somebody out of depression if they want to.

If they don’t want to, they will lock you out, and there is nothing you can do about it.

Inasmuch as it is men that are being loved out of depression most times, it’s easier to love a woman out of depression than to love a man out of depression.

And that’s because men mostly lock up and allow what they are going through to be eating them inside.

A woman is more likely to break into tears the minute she sees an arm stretching towards her.

What do you think will happen when you call somebody that just wants to disappear into thin air and ask her to give you a rundown of how her day went?

When you always show up at her place whenever you talk to her and you feel the restriction in her throat.

“Should I come to you?”

“You know that you can always cry if you feel like crying?”

“Come, let me hold you.”

“Why is your voice rusty today, my baby?”

“Why are your eyes like this? Have you been crying?”

“I made your favorite.”

“Come and sit close to me. Let me watch you eat.”

“I made an eating timetable for you.”

“Make a video of you eating and send it to me.”

“Let me hold your hand.”

“When you’re ready to talk, I will always be here.”

“I know that you said that you want to be left alone, but I’m outside.”

What do you really think will happen?

I’m not even saying that you should ignore all your needs and be about another person’s own.

Nah...

I’m only saying that you should share your willingness to live with these people.

That’s one of the reasons why I can never ship two people that are depressed or angry at the world to be in any form of relationship.

Author’s Note:Let it not be like I’m always writing smut infested newsletters by the time I start rolling in other of my newsletters as from tomorrow.🌚🌚

If this was September 2025, then I would have been doing my clerkship in the hospital and I was posted to the psychiatric ward.

But because this is 2026, this will be recorded as one of my ordeals as a pharmacy student who will soon become a pharmacist.

This is one of the least mouth-opening experiences that I’ve had as a pharmacy student who has worked in the hospital a good number of times, but let me not bore you.

I have a lot of stories from my personal life that I’m yet to share on here, but I will talk about the ones that I’m comfortable sharing with the general public, one after the other.

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Dear brethren...grab your seats.

Let’s dive into business.

There are six wards in the hospital where we did our clerkship (my course mates and I).

It might interest you to know that we were shared into groups (Group A–F).

Each group was made up of not less than 20–25 students.

I was in Group A.(Hehehe... I know, I know, but don’t mention.)

As the first group in line, we started with OPD.

In that particular unit, we did more dispensing and less counseling.

That unit is the major pharmacy sector for that particular hospital.

Nothing really happened there.

It was a boring experience for me.

I have volunteered to work in the hospital a good number of times, so I know ball when it comes to hospital dramas.

As a storyteller and a writer, the hospital is the best fit for me as an upcoming pharmacist.

A hospital without drama and mouth-opening stories?

Count me out.

While we were rotating ourselves through different wards over the weeks, the folks who had been to the psychiatric ward kept sharing interesting stories.

They kept making us feel like we were missing out.

We were actually missing out!

These people were having fun!

My roommate came back to the hostel every day with a more interesting gist than the one she shared with us the previous day.

Safe to say that I couldn’t wait.

I wanted to be involved so badly.

I was this close to going there under the umbrella of "I came to see my roommate," but our external supervisor came, and that particular mission was abolished.

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Fast forward to the D-day.(It was finally our turn to be in the psychiatric ward.)

As a perpetual latecomer who usually stepped into the ward a few seconds before the ward inspector took attendance for the day, I was unusually early.

My ash trousers and white shirt were properly ironed, paired with brown shoes (my favorite, by the way).

I picked my lab coat from the laundry on my way to the hospital.

I got to the ward, and nobody was there yet not even our group leader.

After standing in front of the ward for like five minutes, I decided to go in.

I opened the gate and channeled myself through the corridor.(It was quite long.)

I was already close to the pharmacy section of the psychiatric ward when a woman dashed out from one of the rooms and held my hand.

I was scared asf, but I had to comport myself.

She said a lot of incoherent things, but I just had to play along for my safety.

She got distracted and had to let me go. (Her husband/love interest called her.)

You need to see how she was blushing.😊

Love is such a beautiful thing, for real.

I entered the pharmacy, introduced myself to the pharmacist in charge, and started going through their files.

My course mates came in at once.

It was as if they were in one corner waiting for everybody to gather before they started coming.

Ene (my friend) was even shocked to see me there.

Everybody knows that Ella is always the last person to enter the ward.

Who will tell them?

That I had been preparing myself in a special way for that particular ward.

It will not be nice if I continue this gist without telling you that it is not all of them in that psychiatric ward that are mad.

A good number of them, especially the men, are there because of their excessive intake of hard drugs.

That shit obviously tampered with their mental health.

Celebration of Mass is an everyday thing.

They usually come into the pharmacy to get their medication after Mass.

They run a strict program in there, so everybody was literally with their own cup or bottle of water.

Those who stepped in and willingly took their drugs were there, while the people who were flogged before they could take their meds were also there.

I won’t be putting up their real names, just in case. (Confidentiality.)

Tee was the first person who asked me for my name, which I told him.

He introduced himself, told me that he liked my hair, and left.

Day 1 was file day, so we didn’t clerk them.

We allowed them to do their thing.

Some of my course mates played games (Whot, Ludo) with them.

We wrapped up that day's clerkship by 4 p.m. and went straight to class for the remaining lectures.

Day 2 became another day.

Clerking day.

Everybody was expected to pick one patient and try having a conversation with him or her, no matter how mad the person was.

I was scared.

My course mates were scared too, but we had no choice.

They literally rushed all the mildly mad ones and left the extremely mad ones for the likes of me.

I had already made up my mind to swallow my fear and try clerking the woman at the edge who had been facing the wall ever since we came.

At least she was chained, so she wouldn’t be able to hurt me or something.

I was already moving towards her when I saw Bee.

A tall, handsome man in his 20s.

He looked his age too, but his body build was quite defined.

I feel like he was going to the gym before he was shipped to this place by his family members.

Dressed in a plain white shirt and black trousers.

A book that was wrapped with newspaper was in his hand. (I would later find out that it was one of James Hadley Chase's books.)

Bee was trying to move his seat outside.

I knew that I had to act fast before one of my course mates snatched him away.

CHIMA got to him before me, but he declined.

He didn’t want to talk to anybody.

He said that he wasn’t in the mood.

I was going to leave him alone, but something inside of me kept pushing me to try again.

I followed him outside, allowed him to position his seat before asking him if I could join him, and he said, "Yes."

Hmmmm. 🤔

I brought my seat and sat directly in front of him.

We were looking at each other, eyeball to eyeball.

A dark brother with those type of eyebrows and lashes that make you jealous as a woman.

He kept long nails, but they were so neat!

(Body con dey do me somehow.)

We looked at each other for a while before I initiated my first question.

I asked him if I could talk to him about why he was there, and he said, "Yes."

I introduced myself, and he also did the same.

I excused myself, walked into the pharmacy, got his file, went through it, and we started talking about why he was in the psychiatric ward.

Excessive intake of drugs was obviously his own case.

We talked about why he was doing drugs.

How he felt about being there instead of in school. (He was in his finals.)

We talked about how he ended up there and if he was ready to stop taking hard drugs anytime soon.

I placed the consequences of what he was doing on the table for him to see.

He even shed some tears in the process.

We talked about books. (Apparently, he had read Purple Hibiscus and Americanah.)

He had a lot of things to say about the characters.

I was with my Tab, so he joined me to see a Korean series that I was watching then during break.

My course mates were looking at me weird.

They didn’t stop talking about it on our way back to the faculty.

They kept saying that he didn’t even want to talk to anybody, but he said yes to you.

I didn’t take anything they were saying seriously.

I just laughed in their faces and went about my day.

We went back to the ward the following day, and it was more like the same routine as the previous day.

The only difference was that our external supervisor was coming in for assessment.

Bee and I still talked about a whole lot of things before our time in the ward for the day elapsed.

I was already close to the gate when he shouted my name and told me to wait.

He gave me the note and a brown envelope.

I didn’t even want to raise any form of eyelid, so I threw it inside my bag and left.

It was inside the hostel that I opened the note and the envelope.

Inside the envelope was a brand-new red rosary.

I remembered him asking me if I was a Catholic.

Who would have thought that that was the reason why?

The content of the note?

He was just talking about my beauty and how talking to me made him feel alive, less angry, and excited for the next day.

Let me not lie.

The note made me smile, but that was it.

He ended everything that he said in that note by telling me to reply because he would really like to hear my thoughts.

Unfortunately for him and me, I was not able to go for clerkship the following day because of cramps.

He had asked for my number and my Instagram handle the last time I was in the ward, but I told him to give me his own instead since he wasn’t with his phone at the moment.

That was just me playing tactics with him because I didn’t feel safe enough around him to give him my number.

What if he became obsessive and all?

I kept the note inside my bag for a really long time till it got misplaced.

As for the rosary, I used it to pray until it was stolen.

I remember him from time to time and just wish him well.

I just hope that he was able to break out from his addiction and that life became kind to him.

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Author’s note:

Una too like amebo!🌚🌚

I’m seated in the dining room.

I had just finished having my breakfast (bread and tea)

You can tell that I enjoyed my breakfast, and that is because I soaked my bread inside the tea before eating it.

I’m the only one at home meaning that nobody is around to judge me.

There is no mother in sight to tell me to eat like an educated person.

Hiyaa😭

What does being educated have to do with how I choose to enjoy my meal?

These people are traumatizing me in this house.

They have refused to accept me for who I am.

“What are you teaching your brother by drinking tea the way you do?”

My father's line.

😭😭😭😭

I’m putting myself up for adoption.

My family members don’t love me anymore.

Which is the reason why I’m happy that they have all left the house.

Let me enjoy this house for now and act like I have secured my dream apartment in my dream city while I put you onto things that I will do when next I fall in love.

You are going to read this piece and be like, “Awwwn,” or, “Your healing go really long.”

Which is still chill, especially as somebody that believes that you don’t necessarily heal from the scar that you got from loving somebody that didn’t love you in a way that you deserved.

When you experience heartbreak, it withdraws something from you.

That version of you that falls in love without overthinking it automatically shrinks and, for some people, it dies entirely.

For people like that, they fall in love, or even agree to go into a relationship with a potential love interest, with one of their legs outside.

More like they are waiting for the relationship to fumble so that they will have their;"I knew it”moment

They are always conscious.

They are always on the lookout.

Their mind is always there.

They’re always making sure that they are not over-relying on you.

Double texting, being vulnerable, and making you know that something you did annoyed them is something they will never do.

They don’t want you to see them as somebody that cannot do without you, and you won’t even blame them.

Heartbreak hurts.

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If your heart has not been broken before,then you won’t be able to relate.

When somebody that you are in love with breaks your heart ehnnn, your nostrils block.

You will be out in the open sky, but you will be gasping for air.

Your eyes will be burning like a good amount of atarodò was poured inside it.

Your heart?

Will feel so heavy that you will start feeling physical pain.

It will be like somebody placed a physical stone on your chest.

You will try to act like it’s not a big deal, but you will catch yourself crying in your room when the world is quiet.

You will start remembering everything that both of you did together.

All the midnight calls and texts.

All the sneaking in and out.

You will delete everything about them, but nothing will still change.

You will find yourself in crowded spaces and everybody is suddenly wearing their scent.

Your brother does something and it reminds you of him.

You sneak out of your room to go and steal meat from the kitchen and walk into your parents kissing by 2 a.m., and instead of using your eyes to ask them why they’re kissing inside the kitchen instead of their room, you are forced to battle with how seeing them kiss made you feel.

Your meat-stealing mission has not only been abolished but your sleep too.

You will go back to your room, throw yourself on the bed, lie on your back, and start reminiscing about the first time that you ever kissed them.

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One of the most difficult places to be mehnn, and I’m speaking from experience.

You will try to cry about how painful it is in the afternoon, but your African mother will barge into your room and tell you to go and buy things for dinner.

Nobody in their right senses will go through all these things and still give love a chance.

Nothing about falling in love again after surviving heartbreak is normal, but I’m abnormal, so let’s get into this list real quick.

Things that I will do the next time that I find myself in love:

1. Handwritten letters.

I know that I have my phone and all.

I can easily chat him up and tell him whatever I want to tell him, but nah.

I will go back to the root.

I will so utilize my ability as a writer.

If I can write him a handwritten letter every day of my life (depending on how long the relationship lasts), I will do it.

It’s not a must that it’ll be long all the time.

On some days, it will be three lines reminding him that he has my heart or that I believe so much in him.

I’m a motivational speaker, just that I like acting like I’m not.

Whether he writes back to me or not won’t be a factor.

2. Sending him random pictures of me.

Any form of “What are you doing?” will be accompanied by picture proof of what I’m doing.

The motive behind this particular one has nothing to do with trying to earn his trust.

Nah!

I just want to carry him along.

I want him to feel so involved in my daily activities.

I used to have a friend that made me run down my entire day and everything that I did, including how many times I drank water, whenever she asked me how my day went.

It has rubbed off on me, and I feel like somebody that loves and cares about you will like to have a detailed breakdown of how your day went.

3. Create a folder.

A folder where I will include all his pictures and anything concerning him that he will ever send to me.

That way, I will be able to always access his details without any form of hassle.

The same way it will be easier for me to wipe everything about him from my device the minute things go south.

4. Ensure that he cares about my book rants.

This part is very crucial to me.

I love reading books, but my love for book rants supersedes all.

I love talking about each character in the books that I have read and dissecting their character like an analyst.

I will travel to the bottom of the sea if that’s what it will take to find a love interest that is interested in my book rants like how my SS1 bunkie was invested in all the movie narrations that I was giving her.

5. Intimacy.

If we ever decide to be intimate in the relationship, then we will have that difficult conversation.

We will talk about our pleasure and make sure that nobody is being cheated.

We will spread everything on the table and dissect it without being shy.

*but you are the one that is always shy whenever conversations like that come up?

Oyaaaa...

I’m now a changed woman, and that’s why I’m making this list in the first place.

There is a higher chance that the next man that I will fall in love with is not lying down on the bed on a Thursday morning writing about what he will do when next he falls in love.

Maybe he is in one of the biggest museums in the world showcasing one of his artworks or even closing a million-dollar deal.

I don’t really care.

I’m a writer, and I have taken an oath to utilize my free will.

Maka ndi, “Can’t you write something else?”

6. No heading

The next time that I catch myself in love, I will still love them with everything in me, and I’m also going to make sure that they’re either a writer or an artist,

preferably an artist.

when next I find myself in love;

I will still give it my all.

I will still stay on the call with them till 2 a.m.

I will still pour my heart out to them.

I won’t pretend like I don’t care that much.

You won’t catch me withholding myself so that they will not think that I love them too much.

I won’t only double text, I will quadruple text if the need ever arises.

I will write a letter, text, or even send a voice note to them telling them about how something that they did hurt me or made me feel.

I will love them with my full chest, and I will make sure that they are aware.

I won’t be out here calculating who says “I love you” the most and who doesn’t.

I will make a big deal out of any milestone that they achieve and bathe them with kisses.

I will allow a smile to grace my face anytime that my phone rings and he is the one calling me.

I won’t try to act tough or even more mature.

I will ugly cry in front of him and allow him to hold me.

I won’t allow my trait as the first daughter of an African home to tamper with my position as his baby.

I will allow him to make breakfast for me and even feed me on top.

Is it a dangerous game?

Of course.

But I’m not about to allow fear to prevent me from experiencing what it means to be in love.

Falling in love and staying where I fell in love?

YES!

The only thing that I not be doing is losing myself in a relationship or allowing my rights as a woman to be tampered with.

Which is the reason why I won’t be doing relationship with somebody that doesn’t have the capacity of seeing any other person that is not them.

I have a good amount of love to give, and I will try my best to utilize it.

And if, in the quest of loving, I get my heart broken, I will cry, go through the pain, move on, and fall in love with the next available Yoruba man.

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Authors note: The song that I wanted to add to this newsletter is “Tired of healing” by Noah Henderson and “Locksmith” by Sadie Jean but the web version was misbehaving and I’m already tired as it’s.

I’m even feeling sleepy 😴

I just hope that you will smile while reading this.

Bye boo 🌝

I know that our TikTok brother said that we should leave Christians alone but I just have to talk about the battle that has been going on in my mind.

This is really a sensitive topic for me.

More like an angle in my life that I don’t even want to visit.

I have talked about a good number of things, but where I stand in religion is a discussion that I barely bring up.

And as somebody that sees writing as one of her survival tools, writing about this is the only way I can finally get myself out of my head.

My intention with this piece is not to make people that still identify with religion feel uncomfortable or feel like they don’t know what they’re doing. Nah!

I’m writing this piece because I really want to vent. If not, I might lose my mind.

Let me open this piece by saying: whether you think that God exists or not, you are right.

This particular statement is funny to me, maybe as somebody that knows that, “you are either with it or you’re not with it.”

“It’s either you have it or you don’t have it.”

It cannot be both but let’s leave it like that.

I have been a Catholic all my life.

A girl child born and raised in a family that identifies with the Roman Catholic Church.

If “Concentrated Catholic” is a thing, then that’s where my family members belong. (My uncle is even a priest.)

That type of family where, “If he’s not a Catholic, don’t bring him.”

(This particular rule doesn’t apply to the men because it’s women that convert to their husbands’ churches, not the other way round.)

Over the years, I’ve acted like I didn’t care about that rule, like I’m not going to keep it.

I even called it bullshit but guess what?

All the men that I have dated are Catholics.

I was thinking about it a few days ago and I couldn’t help but laugh.

A rule that I didn’t want to identify by was subconsciously running my love life.

And you will think that I didn’t know their denomination before agreeing to date them.

Don’t worry, I knew.

It’s one of the things that I always asked about in the talking stage. 😭

I received Holy Communion at the age of 10 after being sent home when I was 9 years old with the claim that I was small and not up to the Holy Communion receiving age.

I cried so much that day.

Felt like I was cast out of heaven.

It might interest you to know that I had a vision stage—a point in my life where I was seeing things.

I looked at people and saw a hazy image about their life or what would happen to them next.

At first, it felt weird.

Unbelievable at some point.

I couldn’t even tell anyone about it until a blurry image that I was shown about a girl named Ifunanya came to pass.

Then something about my grandmother being held in the place that I saw a week before it happened came to pass.

I was this close to telling my family members about it, but that era didn’t even last.

Puberty came.

A lot of things were changing about me.

My body was beginning to feel weird.

Developed breasts and all.

Touched myself once or twice that period, and that was how my journey as a visionary came to an end.

That was my first ever proof that, “God doesn’t roll with sinners.”

I felt so dirty.

So unworthy.

I felt bad.

According to my spiritual director then, “The Holy Spirit had left my body because it was no longer conducive for Him.”

I went for confession.

I prayed, cried, and begged Him to forgive me.

Whether He forgave me or not, I don’t really know.

My ability to see things didn’t come back to me, but I remained a good girl.

I avoided anything that was going to lead me into the temptation of sin.

I had a huge crush on Matthew then, but I avoided him.

I read a lot of books, but “smut” never made it to my desk.

I received the sacrament of Confirmation when I was in SS1.

My confirmation name is Nathalia, a name that was influenced by one of the Filipino movies that I watched.

“Anything that you ask God is what He will do for you.”

My grandmother’s favorite line.

Which is actually true, or should I say, was.

He answered all my prayers except one.

My favorite aunty didn’t make it out of the labour room.

Her death took a toll on me.

I was shaken.

I won’t even say that that is the point where my questioning started.

I don’t think so because there was no room for that.

I remember bringing it up and my mom was like:

“Is it everything that you ask me to do for you that I do for you?”

“Some things happen because God wants to teach us a lesson about life.”

It’s not everything that I have ever asked my mom that she did, but she has never said “No” to the important ones.

She has never cut me with a knife or even poured hot water on me just to teach me a lesson.

And if your argument here is that my aunty might have died as a result of carelessness or who knows what she did in the past that made God’s mercy be far away from her at one of the most vulnerable points of her life, then I won’t even blame you.

After all, you are just being a Christian.

P.S. A Christian brother actually said this to me.

Living in sin chases the Holy Spirit and your guardian angel away from your life.

You and I know what that means.

God leaves your life because of sin and the devil jumps in and becomes the pilot of your own life.

I will be the biggest liar alive if I should stand here and tell you that I never believed all that.

I didn’t just believe.

I lived by it.

I was a defined member of Mary League, a Marian society that virgin girls in the Catholic Church join.

Their motto/greeting is “Powerful Virgin.”

We wore white, tied blue scarves, and sat through a series of prayer meetings where we were told to keep our virginity, not for ourselves, but to maintain purity and for our husbands.

A place where they sold us a fantasy that didn’t leave my head till I was in 400L.

“If you successfully keep your virginity till marriage as a Mary League member, it’s the bishop that will officiate your wedding Mass.”

Omooo. 😂😂😂😂

Arịrị!.

They didn’t have such a society for boys shaa.

(Don’t bother saying altar boys because you and I know what goes on there.)

Nobody was promising them that if they kept their virginity, the bishop was going to officiate their wedding.

WAEC and JAMB came, messed with my mental health, and that same God that I was keeping malice with came through for me.

I remember crying so much in the chapel.

(The cry of a virgin reaches His ear faster, they said.)

I begged Him to help me pass my WAEC and gain admission into the university.

My prayer request went through for real.

Even when it was looking like I wasn’t going to enter uni in 2020 to study my dream course, He (God) used my cousin to suggest a university that my Dad and Uncle really liked.

UNN was on strike then, and they were not having all these Pentecostal-owned universities because of one reason that you should have been able to lay your hands on if you started reading this piece from the intro.

Me and Him (God) became close again.

I would ask Him to provide my parents and my sponsors with more money, and He would do it.

I paid school fees on time.

Had steady money pumping into my account.

Helped me pass my exams, even though I was the one that read myself to stupor, but haba, “If He doesn’t want you to pass, you won’t pass.”

“He is the reason why you enter the exam hall and even have the luxury of remembering what you read.”

“God’s grace is in abundance in your life, Sopuruchukwu. You are a miracle child.”

My mom’s favorite line.

She even said it yesterday.

Failing in pharmacy school when I was in 300L left me with another grudge.

2:0.

I wrote it down somewhere.

And in my mother’s attempt to console me, she said:

“Everything happens for a reason. Maybe there is something that God wants you to learn from this.”

“What if passing would have led to something bad happening to you?”

Such a Christian mentality.

Yeah, I said what I said.

A good number of Christians operate with this mindset.

They believe that the only reason why things are not going their way is because God is teaching them a lesson or even preparing a bigger blessing for them.

Which is still chill shaa.

I don’t have any form of problem with that particular thought process.

The thought processes that I have issues with are these ones:

1. The belief that their own religion is better than other people’s own, thereby forcing their religion down their neighbour’s throat.

2. Thanking God for saving them from the same misfortune that befell their neighbour the minute their neighbour finishes sharing their ordeal, or in the scene where the misfortune happened.

Saying things like:

“And I was on my way to that place this morning, but the Holy Spirit told me to wait. I wasted time only for me to get there and what happened had already happened.”

An accident that claimed eight lives.

“Maybe I would have been among them, but God saved me.”

We were all supposed to be people that He created in His own image and likeness.

Why is He saving some and leaving the rest to die?

I had a lot of questions building up in my head, and the Bible wasn’t even helping issues.

Growing up, I read the Bible as a storybook.

Whenever I ran out of what to read, I read the books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, and Susanna.

I read Genesis sometimes.

Leviticus, just because I wanted to read about animals that we should eat and all that.

I added Revelation to my radar because the story about the woman that crushed the dragon’s head with her feet was fascinating.

The whole:

“Two people will be bathing. God will take one person and leave the other.”

A lot of things in the Bible came off like a story to me back then.

You can imagine the shock that I found myself in when I picked that same Bible and a lot of things weren’t just right about it.

The way a good number of verses and books in that same Bible talked down on women.

The way men that did the most preposterous things ever were celebrated as kings.

The story of Esther and the king.

The whispers about Blessed Virgin Mary being a child bride.

It was so overwhelming for me to process.

I couldn’t hold it all in, so I ran.

I fell into the hands of people that were already questioning their faith, but I disappeared on them.

I stopped watching videos where people were questioning the existence of God.

I blocked my ears whenever people were talking about how Solomon, who did a lot of hideous things, was later recognized as the man after God’s heart.

Talks about Gaza and how God is giving people houses but has refused to save the people and children in Gaza.

Where was I going to start from?

I have believed in this man all my life.

Maybe I still do, self.

Just that I’m no longer that rooted, and I now question a lot of things.

I was so confused.

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Then came the denial stage.

Maybe it’s the people that He created that are making Him come off as a bad creature?

He loves women nah.

At least His son was here on earth.

He looked out for women while He was here.

He even allowed a woman to be the first to see Him when He rose from death.

“The level of misogyny in the church is alarming.”

You see, it’s us that are making Him look bad.

The people that wrote the Bible.

People that made all those rules in Leviticus.

The rosarian brother that told me that anal can serve when I told him that I wasn’t ready to lose my virginity yet.

The pastors that sexually molest minors.

He can’t be everywhere nah?

(Forgetting that He’s the omnipresent God.)

How is He supposed to know that people are going to do things their own way?

(Omniscient God.)

I couldn’t just bring myself to see Him in another light.

I couldn’t question the religion that was sold to me.

I was too scared that if I looked deep, I might eventually be able to pick out all the fraud that other people that have deconstructed had already found.

What if God doesn’t exist?

What if He is just an illusion?

What if everything we were told about heaven and hell is a lie?

What if the white man sold a propaganda to us just to take our roots away from us?

What if, in an attempt to make us see them as high and mighty, they sold us this fallacy?

Questions spiralling in my head without any reasonable answer.

I look around me and see people dying.

Children being kidnapped without being saved.

Nigerians praying for a better country, but things keep getting worse by the day.

But somehow, I still have food, clothes, and a roof over my head.

I have never been involved in any major accident.

My mom’s favorite speech:

“Ńè ntí bù anyi gà na anù o.”

Keeps working.

I suffered from chronic convulsions when I was a child, but it followed me till I was in junior class.

It kept happening to me, but never in public.

Always at home.

But it never happened to me in the absence of my family members, which is something that my grandma believes is God’s doing.

“He doesn’t want it to happen to you in public because He doesn’t want you to be disgraced. He doesn’t also allow it to happen to you when you are alone at home because He doesn’t want you to incur any form of injury.”

~My grandma’s solid conclusion that came off as the truth.

That particular sickness disappeared a week after my uncle had prayed every day at midnight for seven days straight.

I look at all these things and it ends up driving me to the angle that I hate so much.

The angle where God is presented as a being that has favourites.

Meaning that if you’re not His favourite, then you can even fall into fire and He won’t notice.

I’m sure that you have heard stories of people struggling for a bus with a particular individual, only for the individual to chance them, take their space, and leave the park before them.

Stories like that always ended with how such a bus tumbled, caught fire, or even had an accident and everybody in the car died.

Such stories are always presented in churches as testimonies.

How God used the man that chanced them off their seat and took their spot in that particular vehicle to spare their lives.

People prayed more, fasted more, stayed away from sin more after hearing testimonies like this.

Who knows, maybe He will see how hard they are working and include them in His list of favourites.

Stories like this instill fear in people and make them performers.

(God must really be having a good time wherever He is.)

You look at your right, but somehow you just have to look at your left.

You look at your left and you see the holy body of Blessed Iwene Tansi (a Rev. Father from Aguleri, a part of Anambra State).

He’s dead, but he wasn’t buried because his body is still intact.

Nothing is missing.

He didn’t decay.

He is still looking fresh, as if he died yesterday.

His glasses seated perfectly to suit his eye shape, dressed in his regalia as a Catholic priest.

Stories of St. Francis’s tongue still moving because he didn’t use it to say any form of evil while he was alive.

St. Maria Goretti.

The teenage girl that chose death instead of allowing a man to rape her, and the fact that her body is still intact and that it’s even performing miracles and healing people.

Stories like this are what you hear, see, and witness and end up confused.

What if this man is actually real?

If He’s not real, who is now doing all these mysterious things?

If He’s real, why’s He not saving the children that were kidnapped?

If He’s real, why’s He not doing anything about what’s going on in Afghanistan?

Or are we like players that are just keeping Him entertained?

Just like in Squid Game, where a certain group of people paid just to watch people gamble with their lives.

“If He’s all-knowing, why did He include the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, knowing fully well that they were going to eat it?”

That’s what a creator on TikTok said and, just as usual, Christians were under his comment section insulting him and wishing him death, accompanied by eternal suffering in hell.

Somebody even said that women are supposed to be deconstructing Christianity more than men because of how religion has been used and is still being used to subjugate women.

Even though the reverse is the case.

You go to churches and women are the sole pillars.

No matter how recent and unverified a prayer ministry is, you must find up to 40 women there praying and crying to God for a better life.

I was at a Catholic prayer ministry a few days ago.

You need to see women. 😖

Men were 20, but women were 473.

I know about this because we took cards.

The last person’s number was 593, and I counted the men in our midst because they were few.

Women show up in places like this and get brainwashed.

It’s only a handful of these ministries that teach women how to look out for themselves and put themselves first.

Churches have played a very huge role in enabling marital violence, rape, and even death.

Churches have protected many evil men and women.

Religion is the number one reason why many women stay in abusive marriages.

A daddy in the church, a demon at home.

A lot of these questions have been in my head and, as somebody that knows that she might never get the answers to these questions without being insulted or even fear-tripped, I have learned to sit with them.

You have read this piece to the ending part and you still don’t understand what this piece is all about.

“Is she deconstructing?”

“Is she still a Christian?”

“Does she still believe in the existence of God?”

These are the same questions that I have been asking myself.

As somebody that was born and raised in the Roman Catholic Church, leaving will be a hard nut to crack.

I still love the choir.

I still listen to some Christian songs and it moves something in me.

And even though I now listen to the Rev. Father preach with my ears widely open not because I want his preachings to touch me, but because I want to be able to spot the misogyny, diversion, and sugar-coating that they infuse in these words of God that they are sharing.

Never for one day did I ever leave the church disappointed.

They always spewed misogyny.

Both in a loud and subtle way.

It’s not easy to just wake up and walk away from familiarity.

It takes time.

Loads of questions that you will never find their answers to.

And the courage to walk away and never look back.

I would like to call it a day at this juncture.

I have a lot to say, but my ink is beginning to dry.

I will drop everything here and try to go about my day without remembering the video that I watched yesterday where a woman said that God is just, but He is not fair.

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