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Cycles
by Hero Jason Uchebenu
[Editor's Choice]
Her father did not live long enough to teach her how to love a man, so she picked up silence instead from her mother. She had learned to leave her throat greased up with defeat; maybe then his words would be easier to swallow. To be a good woman, she must hush—stay quiet. She must bite her tongue and bore holes into her body where all of his ego can fit. With open arms and naked legs, she must welcome his words, even if they come with raging fists to her face.
She is a woman.
And by that, she is a peace offering burnt at a stake; she is an apology dressed in the fine linens of motherhood. Like her mother and her mother’s mother, she had tamed the brims of her waist to continue to dance with fervour, to sway seductively with the beat of his abuse, to take it with a light heart, to give up self, to stay.
The first time it happened, she packaged her battered body like an unwanted parcel and delivered it to her mother's front door. When she was let in, she laid out her story and showed the gravity of her scars. Her mother lifted the hinge of her own wrapper and revealed hers, too. Scars spread across the fullness of her mother’s thighs and sat below the falling of her breasts. These scars told stories of her mother’s survival, of all the times she marched into a battlefield armed with nothing but her husband’s betrayal.
On her mother's body, her father is still alive.
She ran a hand through her mother’s scars, and they offered her a word—they told her she came from a long line of women who have been battered and bruised, who journeyed through the hands of men whose fists clenched faster than the speed of light and broke everything they fell on.
She was her mother's daughter.
Of course she took her mother’s nose, inherited her mother's composure, kindness, and even her darkness, too. But even God couldn't bear darkness; that's why he created the stars. Still, when she begged her mother, saying she did not like this darkness, her mother said she was born there, and she lived in it. Her mother nudged her to hurl herself into the far end of this darkness and stay. She told her to be soft, to be strong. She told her to be resilient, to be a woman. Somehow, the uterus that took up space in her stomach had become a home for a man's seed and his inadequacies. She was made to house his child and nurture his rage; she was raised to nurse his babies and fan his ego.
She is a woman.
And by that, she is a story; she must come in brief chapters, offering bits of herself—word after word, line after line, page after page—until she has nothing left to give.
The second time it happened, she remembered the words of her mother and stayed.
The third time, she searched her daughter—the youthfulness in her breath, the innocence at the blink of her eyelids, the good life that lay in wait for a manifestation for her—and because of that, she regained her will to live, and she stayed.
Her mother never left her father, even when he bathed her with blows and used the hands of society to run tape around her mouth to keep her silent. Her mother gave vent to her father's rage, rather than for her to become a tale in the mouths of her neighbours, a tale of shame and failed womanhood:
—Of what use is a woman if she cannot hold a home?
She still had clear memories of her mother's abuse. Big chunks of violence dispersed all over her psyche, resembling the pattern of flowers on a bride's aisle—significant and everywhere. Some mornings, her father's temper was large enough to fill up the whole house, and, other mornings, it was so small it could fit into the cracks of her fingers. If only she knew her mother would pass this cycle down to her like a dominant gene. If only she realized she had made space for it—without her knowledge—to not just accommodate it but also accept it, even if it burned on her skin or stole the sunshine away from her nirvana.
The fourth time it happened, she was startled by her own courage to fight back. Her tongue charged, shooting daggers at the man who was supposed to be her protector. Her elbows sharpened and made attempts to leave a mark on his skin—a mark that said, “Here lies a woman brave enough to fight the fight of a thousand women before and after her, both living and dead. Here lies courage itself, in its undiluted form. Here lies an ancestry of women who sunk their feet into the same ground that eventually swallowed them. Here lies my mother..."
But he overpowered her. This man, whom she once loved and still loves. This man, to whom she had given her life in the presence of a cheering congregation. They had stood there before a crowd, uttering promises and exchanging vows. “For richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health, till death do us part." These words have been mutilated, rebranded, and handed back to her like a back-handed compliment. “For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death meets you here."
But her body was not designed for death, and her blood was not made to spill. She is not her mother, nor her mother's mother. Her vagina will not be an archive for society's expectations, and her body will not be a crime scene. She refuses to let herself be reduced to a specimen of a mauled society, where women are thrust into a jar of poison and asked to thrive.
She is a woman.
And by that, she is human—she is soft and strong, she is delicate and crude; she has a throbbing heart, humanity coursing through her veins, feelings etched into every stride she takes, and a whole life ahead of her—a life that can be snuffed out if she repeats her mother's cycles all over again.
The fifth time it happened, it didn't.
Hero Jason Uchebenu is a writer and poet from Delta State, Nigeria. Hero’s writings often explore the subtleties of the human experience and everyday life. He infuses storytelling with poetry and, occasionally, humor. When not writing, he is often found procrastinating or caught up in a daydream. Connect with him at herojason1999@gmail.com or follow him on X @herojayseen.