Dating : Starving Stomach

“I will tell you my daughter of your worth and not your beauty. Your beauty is a given, every being is born beautiful. Knowing your worth can save your life. Raising you on beauty alone you will be starved, you will be raw, you will be weak, an easy stomach always in need of someone telling you how beautiful you are.” –emotional nutrition by Nayyirah Waheed.

When Kedorno heard about her cousin’s wedding, she felt animosity rise in her throat like bile, but she swallowed it painfully, replacing it with a smile.

As she sat with her mother, putting stickers on souvenirs for the wedding, she couldn’t stop herself from placing the stickers so her cousin’s face appeared distorted. But despite the manhandling, her cousin still looked beautiful. Kerdono kissed her teeth and rolled her eyes.

“Ahn ahn, what’s doing you?” her mother asked.

Kedorno knew better than to tell her what was ‘doing her.’ Her mother was an ‘every being is beautiful’ kind of person and wouldn’t understand Kedorno’s resentment for her cousin or why she yearned to have everyone be in awe of her beauty. “Nothing,” Kedorno said.

Her mother slowly peeled off a sticker with the precision of a surgeon, the opposite of what Kedorno was doing. “Nothing is something.”

Kedorno rolled her eyes and dropped a green bowl too hard.

“Be careful,” her mother said without looking up.

Kedorno knew she wasn’t just talking about the bowl. “Sorry,” she murmured under her breath.

“I have a story to tell you,” her mother said. Kerdono stopped herself from speaking. “This is the story of Ojali,” her mother started.

“Her name meant beauty and she was the physical embodiment of the word. She had hair as black as coal and when stretched, it reached her back.

“She had marks on her face given to her at birth to distinguish her. They ran down both cheeks in three lines,” Kedorno grimaced. She never understood how tribal marks were considered pretty.

“Her nose was shaped like a teardrop, starting out small and growing wide. Everyone marvelled at her beauty and called her a work of art. Ojali revelled in this. She’d slather her skin with Shea butter so when she danced at the square, her skin would glow. People hurled praises at her, and it gratified her hunger.

“One day, Ojali walked out seeking attention, but no one stopped to stare like they usually did. It was as if she was invisible. At the square, Ojali saw another woman dancing with skin lighter than hers. Her nose was narrow and straight like her hair which didn’t need to be stretched to reveal its full length and her face was void of any carvings. The people chanted, ‘Otigbele has graced us with her beauty.’ They used to sing that for Ojali.

“Ojali shouted that there was a mistake, and she was the one they were meant to sing for. But it was as if she was a ghost. No one acknowledged her, and she watched as her praises were given to an outsider.

“Without her daily dose of praise, Ojali starved. She became a weaker version of herself. When she went to the stream, she’d look at her reflection, searching for the beauty people saw in her. But she never found it.

“Soon she stopped searching. She fell in love with pottery. It distracted her and earned her some money. Ojali poured her all into it, creating different shaped vessels and drawing mesmerising patterns on them. She gained admiration for that.

“One day, she realised how different her works were. No vessels were exactly alike, but she found beauty in all of them. She looked at her reflection again and without the shouts of praise, saw the beauty herself for the first time.

“Ojali realised that there wasn’t a certain definition of beauty. It was always there, but in different ways. Beauty was confusing to humans because it wasn’t set, so they made their own rules that changed constantly.

“Ojali didn’t need people to remind her of her beauty because she saw it for herself and her work showed there was more to her than that. She was capable of so much. She didn’t need validation. She wasn’t a starving stomach anymore.”

Kedorno’s mother looked at her for a reaction. Kedorno didn’t speak, but she placed the stickers without disfiguring her cousin’s face.