NNODIM.

Nnodim liked to eat roasted fish in a well seasoned palm oil-onion sauce. He would pinch the skin of the fish, use it to scoop up onion slices and lots of the red oil. He always had to lick his hands because of the drips. No one knows how much you love to watch him.

D’im as you fondly call him is not like the rest boys, he’s actually not like any other person you’ve met. He’s beautiful in a way that people deem feminine, so delicate, so smooth, when you see him you instantly think pretty. He’s a dreamer but not of money and cars, he dreams of peace and joy and quiet and poems and food. When you tell him of your dreams to one day be an artist, he doesn’t mock you or belittle your dreams like every other person has done. Instead he looks you in the eyes, smiles, draws you closer to himself and says “I can never not be proud of you.” You cried that night, but tears of joy.

So now, years later, you both live in a house which belongs to both of you (he made sure the papers had both names). You’re both older than when you met and sat and talked about dreams that have become real. Nothing seems to have changed, but life definitely got better. And all the while the world tried to stop you, deter you, break you, you had Nnodim, the love who welcomed you, who carried and lifted you, who cheered you on. The love who’s so typical in this wrapper across his waist, bopping his head of grey hairs to an Umu Obiligbo song while he grills fish for dinner.

Several years later and he’s still a wondrous beautiful sight to you. No one will ever know how much you love to watch him.