Ten years of journal
Ten years, written down
I began keeping notes in 2016, on paper, in my phone, in messages to myself. This is the decade that made me, compiled and rewritten so that it can be read from the beginning. It is not always easy reading. It is always mine.
Each year has its own page. Entries are short, because most were written in bad light on a cracked phone. Where a name would put someone at risk, it has been changed. Where I was wrong about something at the time, I have left it, and said so later.
The books tell the long version of the worst parts. The journal is what happened between the chapters: the ordinary days, the small mercies, the people who helped.
This journal was compiled from ten years of notes, messages and memories and rewritten for this site.
2026: Dark at four
Ten yearsTen years since the hundred-naira notebook under the mattress. What is different, what is the same, and the sentence I still write at the top.BeginningA call from OwerriThe boy from Aba called the British number. He has shoes now, and a job, and a number a friend wrote on his own arm to give away. On how a line becomes a line.Support lineThe addressI am building a website. Everything, in English and in Igbo, with my face on it, at a fixed address. On why a man builds his own memorial while he is well.WritingNnaAn Igbo church in London on Easter Sunday. A man who knew who I was, and what he called me anyway.FaithThe clinicA sexual health clinic in England: no bench with a malaria poster, no question about how, a nurse who did not flinch, and a leaflet with four letters on it.HealthDark at fourNobody warned me about the light. On the first English winter, the radiator, and what freedom looks like as paperwork.England
2025: Six books and a plane
SixI Am Son of a Fallen Woman went up today, the last of six. Three months. Ten years. On what it is to have said everything.WritingLifeToday a court in Abuja sentenced Nnamdi Kanu to life in prison. I watched it on a phone in England and wrote this before I could think.BiafraBiafra Rising, with MamaOne week in England, and the first thing I did was press the button on the book with my mother's name on it.BiafraThe Port Harcourt road at dawnThe last walk to the mango tree, my mother's hands, the airport gate. Written in the air.LeavingThe first bookThe Path to God went up on Amazon today under the name Jay. A devotional, first, before any of the others. This is why.WritingJuly, in the sunThirteen short videos filmed outside a house in Owerri in a white T-shirt. I wanted a record of me happy, made on purpose, before I left.OwerriYesThe man at the window said yes. October. I told my mother in the kitchen, and for the first time in nine years her hands stopped.LeavingWalkingA friend photographed me on the path by the old hotel, in black and white. It is the picture of me I would choose. On why.Owerri
2024: The line
Christmas Eve, photographedA bad night. I took a picture of my own face crying, on purpose, and I am keeping it. This is why.HealthFinlandSimon Ekpa arrested in Lahti. The man who ordered the Mondays from a Finnish sofa, and what I think about it from a shut shop in Owerri.BiafraA boy from AbaThe first time the line paid for something. Six thousand naira, a bus, a night in a guest house, and what it bought.Support lineThe first callI gave my number to a friend to give to a boy who needed it. He called at one in the morning. This is how the line began.Support lineStill hereThe man at the window said not yet. The bag is still under the bed. On waiting as a way of life.Leaving
2023: The decision
The last harmattan, maybeChristmas Eve at D10, in the parlour this time. Papa in the room. A photograph by the mango tree with six people in it.FamilyPapersWhat it actually takes: a passport office in Owerri, a bank statement, a letter, a form that asks a question I cannot answer honestly.LeavingMama said goThe kitchen, the stool, and the sentence I had spent seven years refusing to say, said for me by the person with the most right to refuse it.LeavingObinze at dawnI walk at five now, from the stadium to the mango tree at D10 and back, before the city is awake enough to have an opinion.OwerriThe electionThe country voted last week. For one afternoon the south-east thought it might have a president who was ours. On what hope does to a region.NigeriaWriting insteadThe file is a hundred and twenty pages. On what happens to the worst things when you put them in order.Writing
2022: Evidence
One year on the pillThree hundred and sixty-five nights at nine o'clock. What has changed in the body, and what has changed in the mirror.HealthMama knowsI told my mother about the pill. In the kitchen, on the low stool, with the knife in my hand. What she did with her hands.FamilyA journalistA woman from Lagos with a recorder and a train of questions that were not the officer's. She could not publish it. She told me to.WritingThe lawyer's officeA second floor on Wetheral Road, a fan that did not turn, and a man who told me the truth about what my evidence was worth.The law
2021: The worst year
UndetectableThe nurse said a word today that I want to keep. I am ending the worst year with it.HealthMondayThe sit-at-home has begun. Every Monday, the whole south-east, shut. On what it is to lose a day a week and not be able to say why.BiafraThe first pillSix weeks late, I went back to the clinic. One tablet, every day, at nine. The nurse who did not look at me looked at me.HealthTaken from KenyaKanu has been seized in Nairobi and flown to Abuja in chains. The whole south-east went quiet, and then it did not.BiafraThe resultA clinic on the Aba road, a piece of paper, and what I believed for the first month, which was everything Owerri believes.HealthThe police stationI went to report it. I am writing down exactly what the officer said, because one day it will be needed.The lawWhat I will not write hereSomething was done to me. I am not going to describe it in this notebook. I am going to describe the ceiling.Health
2020: Locked in
December, and the weather changingThe harmattan, an armed wing announced, soldiers back at the roundabouts, and my mother's flag still in the wardrobe.BiafraEndSARSFor two weeks the whole country stood in the road against the police, and for two weeks I thought something might change. Then Lekki.NigeriaEudoraMy sister asked me the question nobody in the house has asked, straight out, over the ugu. I answered her.FamilyThe friend who leftE. is going to Lagos. Not because of me, he says. I am writing down what it is like when the one person goes.LoveLockdown in OwerriEaster Sunday with the churches shut. The strange peace of a city that cannot gather, and what it costs a man who sells to eat.Owerri
2019: The door
InvisibleEveryone in Owerri now knows, or knows someone who knows. On what it is to be seen and unseen in the same street.OwerriComing back, partlyFour months later I sat in my mother's kitchen again. Not in the parlour. The kitchen. That is the arrangement.FamilyTwo weeksFourteen days on a floor. What I learned about kindness, and the phone call that came from a number I knew.FamilyThe first nightWhat the first night outside your father's house is actually like, hour by hour, for anyone who has it ahead of them.FearThe afternoonI am writing this on a borrowed phone, on a floor that is not mine. Today my family found out.Family
2018: The sentence, said
Christmas at D10All six of us under one roof, rice and chicken, Eudora winning every argument, and a thing I noticed about Papa.FamilyTwenty poundsMama told the story of the twenty pounds properly tonight, with the numbers, and I understood something about my grandmother.BiafraMoneyHow much it costs to leave Nigeria, how much I have, and the arithmetic of a life.LeavingThe room I walked out ofThe rules from last year worked. A story that changed, an address that moved, and a bus I got on instead.FearThe first time I said itTwo years of not writing the sentence. Today I said it, to E., on the stadium road, and the world did not end.Love
2017: Two phones
Prayer, revisedA year after it turned around in my mouth, the prayer has settled. It is the only honest thing I say in that building.FaithPython DanceThe army is in the south-east. Kanu's house was raided. A court has called us terrorists. In our house, my mother is telling the old stories again.BiafraMy mother's handsMama asked me something in the kitchen and did not wait for an answer. I think she knows.FamilyTwo phonesWhat happened to a friend of E.'s last month, and the rules I am making for myself because of it.FearThe joke at the junctionA man was beaten at the junction on Friday. Everyone is laughing about it. I am writing down why I am not.Fear
2016: The first page
HarmattanThe dry wind, Francis home, Charles on the bicycle, and a year that ends with one person knowing.FamilyWhat the pastor saidA sermon about people like me, and the moment in the pew when my prayer changed shape.FaithA name I will not writeThe first person I could talk to. I am calling him E., and I am not saying anything else.LoveSunday, twiceThe performance I give every week, described once so I never have to describe it again.FaithThe first pageWhy I am starting a notebook I will have to hide, and where I am hiding it.Beginning
The short version of the same years.
God Bless Gay People is the memoir that came out of these notes. It is a hundred and thirty pages and it is the truest thing I have written.