I know that you pity me. You shake your head back and forth as you watch me from the bathroom door. I assure you, I do not need your pity. What I need is more water; more time. Do not look at me like I am crazy. There is nothing strange about a twenty five year old poet sitting on cold bathroom tiles, beneath a shower, and absolutely nothing pathetic about steamy water, pouring from thick afro hair down to curled up toes. I think it is beautiful. Poetic, even. 

I do not like to cry. I hate how helpless it makes me feel, how you stare at me with sad eyes and lips arching downwards. I wish you would not be so prude. Sometimes I want you to fuck the sadness out of me; to pull my wrapper off my chest and grope my breasts until it is all I can feel in my head, heart, and between my legs. I want to say it to you, but I can’t seem to find a way to make “you bore me” sound not-so-awful. A shame, I think, for a poet. 

I like you. I like how you laugh at my bad jokes and pretend like my Egusi Soup isn’t an abomination. You have excuses for every mistake I make: you blame the salt when my porridge has little —or too much—taste; you blame the weather when I leave my clothes scattered on the bed; you blame the government when I leave crumpled pieces of paper on the floor. You will blame anything and anyone, but me. When I make poison and call it soup, I beg you to tell me the bitter truth. I want you to tell me that my Afang tastes like dog shit, that everything I cook is a disaster, and that I am a failure in the kitchen. Instead, you tell me it is the best you have ever had and run your lying tongue on the bowl, licking it squeaky clean.

I guess we are alike in that regard. Both of us, liars. 

I do not stutter when you ask for the bitter truth. Lips to your ears, hands on your chubby cheek, I say: “Yes hon, you were wonderful. I did come, twice. Didn’t you feel it?” You grin, lock your eyes in mine and plant a wet kiss on my forehead. The lies flow easily, like they are rehearsed. Consistency does that, you see. Three years is enough to blur out the thick line between a lie and a truth. I tell myself that the lies are necessary, that I care too much about your gentle heart to break it so, but I know that even that is a lie. I have not cared about anyone but me in a very long time. I wonder, sometimes, if you see through me. I wonder if you know, just by looking in my eyes—like I do by looking in yours. 

I like that you do not interrupt the rejection ritual. It was you who called it that after the fourth rejection mail, and I remember how funny it had been. Now, thirty-three rejections after, it is never funny. You sit by the edge of the bed and watch me scroll through the body of the mail, searching my facial expressions for hints. There is always nothing. You stare at me but do not say a word as I take off every piece of clothing from my thin body and walk slowly to the bathroom. There, I turn the shower on and sink to the floor—letting the water wash away my failure, my pain, and my shame—for thirty minutes. When I am done, I find you standing by the door with a towel spread out for me, waiting to wrap me up as I sob into your shoulders. This has been us, once a month, for nearly three years.

I think it is upsetting that you still look at me with pity after so long. I do not need your pity, or my mother’s. I know that she calls you often to ask about me, and that you indulge her. I see her phone number in your call history. When I go through your phone, I hope to find you cheating. I want that excitement, a little shift in the tedious routine that is our life, but cheating on your slothful girlfriend is too out of character for a man like you, and all I find are evidences of conversations with my mother. 

“She will be fine, she is working on a new collection and I think it’s great. It might just turn things around for us,” you say.

“Alright. I do hope it works out this time, it has been so long,” she replies.

I like that you continue to give her hope. She still dreams of a world where I am a renowned writer; a world where it is impossible for me to fail. I am still her artistic genius, the same one that won all the debate competitions in high school; the same one whose short stories were featured in the school magazine; the same one that was nicknamed "The Small Adichie of Favoured Girls High School." I like that you spare her the bitter truth. I do not want to break her heart.

We say we desire honesty, but that is the biggest lie of all. I do not want to be told that I suck; that it has been years since I wrote a paragraph that made sense. I don't want to be told that I am a disappointment to my mother and husband, and I certainly do not want to be told that I have failed. You know this. So you try, every morning, to tell me the lies I need to hear. And I believe them. Until the mail comes, and the truth stands in front of me— naked, ugly, bitter.

There are so many bitter truths that we guard cautiously, but perhaps that's why we stay: you feed me lies and I feed you. You water me and I water you.

Symbiosis.