Pretty in pink (Masculinity is a cage).

Dear Ugo, 

Kedu ka i si eme taa?, I hope it is not too cold down there, sorry o! tomorrow I will remember to bring a blanket along with me. I am writing you this letter to say I am sorry. I have wronged you greatly and for this reason I have come to tender all my sorry's today. Sometimes I try to picture you as you were,

but lately this seems more and more difficult to do. Ugo the sky looks angry today, it has been raining all week.  

     

     I am so sorry I had a bone stuck in my throat two moons ago at the departmental store when you put back that baby pink shirt with a simple thread design. My aunt, your mother had told you to pick a more masculine one. This is how remember you. Simple. mfe, my soft baby. 

You picked black. Not the normal black, a darker black that reminded me of the color the bodies in supernatural turn to after demons depart from them, bodies burnt by fire.  

      I am sorry I did not open the lock on your cage earlier. Yes, a cage because in our society this is what I view masculinity to be. A Cage. 

     I am sorry I had a bone stuck in my throat and I wasn’t able to tell you that there in nothing bad or wrong in being a soft beautiful boy. Boys don't have to develop a hard impenetrable shell to take care of their future families like your dad told you at age 8. 

       I am sorry I didn’t tell you there in nothing wrong in liking feminine colors like pink and watching power puff girls cartoons at age 10.  

At age 11, I didn’t tell you not to listen

when your mother smacked you out of the kitchen saying that boys don’t belong in the kitchen or that boys don’t sweep, dust and mop. After all it was a girls job. 

      I would have told you that there was nothing wrong with your sister Adanne sharing your play station games with you at age 12. Don’t shout at her or say "it's for boys Ada go play with your dolls". 

     I am sorry at 13 they didn’t let you be a child when you were a child. You just wanted to play dress up with your sister and her friends.  

      At 14 they always kept saying, boys don’t do this, boys don’t do that. THIS IS GAY, THAT IS GAY. Ugo were you gay? I remember you stealing shy glances at the parish pastors daughter. You couldn’t have been gay. 

     I wasn’t there to laugh in the high throaty pitched voice you said you loved. I would have said "Ugo niile spirit na mbụ enyemaka igbe na-efu" (Ugo all the spirit in the first aid box is missing), I wasn’t there to tell you to walk chin high at age 15, if your chin is hairless deal with it, not everybody belongs to the beard gang class. 

     I could have said Let them laugh at you because you don’t have a girl to steal kisses with as the lights in Silverbird's cinemas at Ikeja turn dark at Age 16. 

      I could have rubbed your back and said It's okay to feel lonely, at 17. It's okay to feel cold and needy at night. It shows that you are human, you have life, wants and needs. 

  

        There is nothing to "take it like a man" at 18. I could have comforted you over Blue bunny strawberry shortcake flavor which you loved so much. Told you it's okay to cry, it's okay to feel pain and voice out when your first girlfriend breaks your virgin heart. 

     I could have stopped you two months to your 19th birthday. I could have screamed from behind the closed bathroom door. I could have screamed your name, I would have told you that the bone is finally out my throat, that I was going to talk and I wasn’t going to stop screaming

.  

    Give me another chance Ugo wake up, please wake up and I will make you a promise, I will never eat meat again. 

From  

your youthful, toothless aunty 

Olanna. 

BY: ISHOLA OREOFE 

IG: LIFE_OF_OREOFE 

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