Beauty

“Draw an “x” everywhere it hurts
I want to make it all disappear
Every dent or bulge that won’t work for you
I could make you truly happy
Find something beautiful in you”

The client stood still, her face even more wrinkled in concentration, she stared at her large portrait, marker in hand, seduced by the deep voice of the plastic surgeon.

This was it, her problems would be carved away.

Walls

The officer wasn’t making any sense, neither did answering questions in a bare, cold seem reasonable.
With a pen in his left hand and a thoughtful stare, the officer continued to make notes through my silence.
“When did you first notice the walls caving in?”
Mother used to say many questions had no answers.
“Don’t you understand me?”
I nodded.
More scribbling, I stared at the band tattooed around his index finger.
I thought of father’s hands, hard knuckled from scotch, cigarettes and lonely nights around town, sister’s singed fingers decorated with cuts from making sacrifices and my pale ashy hands.
Today, my house lay in ruins miles away, block separated from block, as though intentionally disconnected, I told the previous officer what I knew, despite his incredulous look.
I still recall perfectly the Tuesday morning in July when mother shook the dust off her feet and left a whirlwind behind. She had suppressed a tornado most of her life and then suddenly without warning ripped out the crosses nailed to her bedroom wall.
Father knew she wasn’t human, a daughter of Oya trapped in a body, she kept her Irukere and saber tucked away in the bottom drawer, he always knew there would be a price to pay.
As the walls crumbled I heard him vow in his dialect that he would love her in his next life.