The friend who left

E. is going to Lagos. His uncle's brother has a shop in Ikeja and there is work and a room, and in Lagos, he says, nobody knows your face. He is right. He has been the one person for four years and he is going on Thursday, and he says it is not because of me, and I believe him, and it is also because of me, and he knows I know.

There is a version of this where I go too. I have looked at it every night this week. The small notebook says no. The small notebook always says no.

So we walked the stadium road one more time, past the umbrella, to the end where the road gives up and becomes bush, and we stood there, and he said, you will find another person, and I said, that is not how it works, and he said, no, and we came back.

I want to write down what it is, because nobody ever says it: when you are gay in Nigeria and you have one person, that person is not your friend or your lover or whatever the word is. He is your witness. He is the only one who can confirm that you exist. When he goes, there is a way in which you stop existing until the next one, and there is never a guarantee of a next one.

Thursday. I will not go to the park. I do not want to see the bus.