Ten years

Ten years, near enough, since the notebook from the shop by the junction, a hundred naira, under the mattress on the wall side where Charles did not go. I have it here. It came in the bag with the two shirts and the Bible and the printout. The first page says there is a sentence in my head that I have never said. It is in my handwriting from when I was nineteen and it makes me want to put my hand on that boy's shoulder and say, nna, you have eaten?

What is different. I have said the sentence, to one person on a road, then to a notebook, then to my sister over the ugu, then to a courtroom that would not hear it, then in six books to whoever has a phone. I live where two men can hold hands on the high street. I take a pill at nine and I cannot hurt anyone. There is a line, with five numbers and no name, and a boy in Owerri with trainers who gives the number out. There is a house on the internet with my face on it. There is a letter on it for afterwards, which I hope nobody needs for a very long time.

What is the same. The prayer, which I still say every day, under my breath, for E. in Lagos and the man with one shoe and the boy on the church floor and the woman under the umbrella and last, because that is the order I can manage, for me. God bless gay people. My mother's hands, which have stopped three times in ten years and will, I think, stop a fourth when I send for her, or come back, whichever Igbo means. The walking. The fact that I look at the camera too hard.

And the sentence at the top of every page, which was under the mattress for four years and is now on a website in two languages: I am gay. I am still here. Write it down. That is the whole method. That was always the whole method.

Pill at nine. Took it. Ten years. Thank you for reading. Now go and call someone who needs to hear that you did.