270 Days (2021)
Two hundred seventy days.
Only two hundred seventy days.
Two effing hundred
Seventy effing days
Two hundred seventy days.
Hmmph.
I suppose it equates to the two hundred seventy ways
That we are deemed inferior
Deemed less than
Deemed nothing
By those who really count
The “real” people,
The ones that matter
Of which I am not.
Two hundred seventy days.
I’m tired of having to celebrate
The “something”
That’s really nothing.
I’m tired of “trickle down” justice
That is ultimately nothing but runoff and debris
I’m tired of being forced to be a bottom feeder
When I was born for freshwater
I’m tired of surviving off of the crumbs
And scraps
Like a dog
That fall from the master’s plate
And calling it a meal.
Two hundred seventy days.
I’m tired of having to strive to be “grateful”
For the bare minimum
Which is certainly bare,
And very much minimum.
I’m tired of having to withhold my tears
And still my tongue
While painfully curtsying.
Tired of having to coax myself
To alter my expression…
Forcibly shifting the muscles around my mouth
And lifting my high, round cheeks to form a smile
For you
That you don’t deserve
But that you will get
For you, and those like you, always get what you want.
The smile I offer is artificially assembled
I try hard to make it look real,
But deep down, it is as fake as you are
It is a smile that doesn’t match
The deadened eyes
Underneath my sparse, blinking eyelashes
(Well, what is left of them after trichotillomania)
Thin, black, feathery fringes
Framing the eyelids
Of a pair of small and weary
Afro-Asiatic dark brown eyes, mine.
Eyes that are heavy
With the weight
Of unshed tears
Kiloliters full,
A lifetime full.
Two hundred seventy days.
Back to you
Because unlike me, you matter
A smile.
You want a smile;
You get a smile.
But not solely a smile
For you, and those like you
Demand accessories with the smile.
The smile alone, which you do not deserve, is not satisfactory
You must have more, more.
Always more.
So, with great effort
I again contort my full lips
Into a caricature
Of a smile that isn’t real.
And with even greater effort
I choke out a murmur
Of soft, scripted words
Expressing the requisite “gratitude”
For you, to you.
As per your unspoken, entitled demand.
That is the fee…
Gratitude.
Gratitude which must be paid
For the barest minimum that you’ve renamed “justice”
Even if it’s gratitude that I don’t feel.
Even if there’s no actual justice being manifested.
Two hundred seventy days.
They say you can’t “squeeze blood from a turnip.”
Neither can anyone squeeze blood
From the atrophied, calcified, dry bones within me
Whose marrow and nutrients
Have long since evaporated
Into the suffocating hodgepodge of gases
That are appropriately called “air.”
Air.
Not at all a misnomer…
Though more accurately a homonym
In its purest sense.
Air.
For it is evident
That I err
In just existing
In just being here
No justice exists for me
Nor for those like me
We are ineligible…by birthright
I am error personified…
In the air.
I err
In the skin that I was born in
Too dusky
To ever be perceived
By those who matter
As worthy.
I err
In thinking this “air”
Lingering around me
Existing in my pitiable presence
Is present
For any reason
Keeping me alive
For any reason
Except punishment…
For any reason
Except to be a whipping post for the world.
Two hundred seventy days.
You hate me.
This I know
Of this I am sure.
You hate me.
Because of this brain
That won’t remain still
Because of this skin
That mirrors the bold bronze hue
Of the beaches whose sands caress my bare toes
Mixed with the jet, inky wonder
Of the night sky upon which I silently gaze
Imbued with the rich, shiny tones of the copper soil
From which all life emerged.
You hate me.
This I know
Of this I am sure.
Because of these dark brown, almost black eyes of mine
Infinite orbs of wisdom
Deep, dark pools
That absorb sight,
That soak in my surroundings.
That won’t sustain the demanded eye contact
Dark brown, almost black eyes…mine.
They evade your controlling gaze
Yet still see all
Despite your elaborate subterfuge
Nothing is hidden from these eyes, mine.
They peer right into your soul
And can see that it is empty.
Two hundred seventy days.
You recoil from me
You don’t dare to stare for too long
At me
For I am the truth
Both light and shadow
Both blue sky and gray fog
Both land and sea
I am rounded where you are sharp;
I caress quietly where you slice precisely
I absorb color while you scatter it, shatter it.
Behold the soft dark smoothness of my skin
My nose is generous, broad
I inhale and exhale life through flared nostril openings
My head is adorned with a crown of wiry black puffs of hair
Thick clouds coiling around themselves
Like endless ellipses
And this body, mine
This supple, rounded body
Sturdy
Strong
Unforgettable
Mine.
Its intrinsic yet defiant stims, flaps, twirls
Are as much of an art form
As its natural curves
Curves which I am born with
While you pay
To inject and formulate inferior ones
All my life, since childhood
You have shamed me for my body, for its curves
Yet you spend a small fortune
Seeking to emulate it.
Two hundred seventy days.
I am different
I am difference
My mind
My skin
My mouth
Even the motion of my limbs
They are undulating waves
In a timeless ocean
Of seamless, soothing melody
A dance whose rhythm, for me, flows naturally
But you demand that it must instead
Be as rigid as ice.
My particles must not float freely, you say
They must be densely packed
Barely moving
Barely breathing
In a tight pattern of “respectability,”
Of pseudo “normalcy,”
Of simulated “abled-ness”
Of manufactured sorta-adjacent-to-yet-never-truly-ever-going-to-be “honorary whiteness”
Which is the standard.
The “right” way.
Your game, so you make the rules
Always
Two hundred seventy days.
What a f*<ked up game.
I hate your game.
I hate it so much.
I hate it times 270
Every rigged, unjust element of it
I loathe
Detest
Yet I have still played your game
Though I despise it so.
I played it not for me.
I played it only for them.
For them.
Those whose very existence
Drives my every move, my every thought.
Those for whom I would gladly donate
All of my breath,
My organs and organelles,
My lymphatic and serous fluids,
The activity of my battered brain and weary heart.
I would gut myself from the inside out
Dismember myself with glee
Disembowel myself with no regret
If it only it would purchase them
An opportunity, an opening.
A sliver of hope.
For survival.
For a chance
At something
So they wouldn’t have to play this wretched game
Of demoralization
Devaluation
Deceit
Defeat
Death.
Two hundred seventy days.
Did I “sell out?”
Because I played.
I played the game.
Instead of refraining.
I knew the outcome was likely to be unfavorable
Yet I still played.
I knew I was likely to sustain massive injury
Yet I still played
Better my head than theirs in line for the guillotine
So I played
Better I endure the majority of the pain
Rather than have them subjected to it
So I played
I have little hope remaining anyway;
Minimal light enduring
So I played
And as suspected, I lost
I fought valiantly
I fought heartily
I lost honorably
But I still lost.
Two hundred seventy days.
The scars remain.
My wounds have ceased their emissions;
And are no longer tiny, raw, tender.
Instead, they have toughened
Stiffened
Evolved.
They are now raised.
Hypertrophic scars.
Keloids
They are many
They are massive
And you cannot hurt me there any longer.
Once you could, but you can’t anymore.
Those parts of me can’t be harmed.
Because those parts can no longer feel
They don’t feel anything anymore.
I hate your game.
I hate it so much.
Yet, I played
To satisfy your insatiable desire
I paid the bloated admissions price
So archaic.
A pound of flesh.
I carved out mine
Blood and all
Severed arteries
Mutilated venules
Nicked nerves…now necrotizing
Glands gutted and gushing
I played
To keep them, those I loved, intact
Yes, I played
I played to my own peril
I played in writhing pain
I played in fear
I played. I played for them.
For them.
For their survival
For their chance
So they wouldn’t have to play…
I played.
For all of us.
I played with all my heart and soul
I played with all that I have within me
And even what I don’t have.
I borrowed the future;
I mortgaged it all.
I lost.
And now we are hemorrhaging
Bleeding out all that is left
All that remains
That which the world had not yet destroyed.
All for two hundred and seventy days.
Two hundred seventy measly days.
That’s all; that’s all.
Not even long enough
To lay with one’s love and fully form a life
For it takes ~40 weeks
To complete the journey from conception to birth
40 weeks = 280 days.
Two hundred seventy days
Is not even one year.
Not even 52 weeks
Not even 12 months
Not even 525,600 minutes
This isn’t “justice.”
It’s not enough.
It’s not enough to heal what was destroyed
It’s not enough to pay for the damage
It’s not enough to truly move on
It’s not enough to genuinely feel safe
It’s not enough for anything
Not nearly enough.
Yet it’s all that we have been allotted.
What’s left of my charred and battered heart is breaking
Breaking
Breaking into two hundred seventy pieces, festering
Never to be put together again
Recommended citation: Giwa Onaiwu, Morénike. (2021). 270 Days. Just Being Me...Who Needs "Normalcy," Anyway? [Personal essay.]