WENDY WRITES

UNHOLY COMMUNION

You wrap yourself in silk sheets to sleep

Hands stretched to the tail of your bed

Belly face down

Try to avoid your eyes from looking at the mirrors in the ceilings

The pain of being different

Cloaked only by the expensive feel of silk

Just as you start to drift in dream waters

You feel your body fade

Then the screams begin;

Abomination!

Prayers won’t save her

Church won’t save her

The other Sunday you went to church

The priest preaches about sin

The wages of sin

“The wages of sin is death”

Death!

“Death” has become a one-word prayer

The lady that sits next to you

Turns to ask you why you are not wearing a scarf

Like the assembly of curls nesting on your head

Is another sin to pray against?

Like each strand mirrors the truth of your fears

Can they see through it?

That the night before her hands ran through your hair

While she let out soft moans

That your bodies pressed against each other in perfect harmony

Or that the person you love

Is the woman seated right next to you

The preacher keeps up the sin talk

Sin this

Sin that

The adjoining words fall like scales as they make their way to your ears

You close your eyes

Try to remember what the preacher said...

O yes

“God is merciful”

“There is no hiding place from him”

Not even silk?

Wrapped carefully around your bare skin, belly face down?

Communion time,

You heave your shame burdened body

Stretch your saggy legs to the altar

Head bowed in shame

Hands pressed in prayer

Forgiveness has deserted this temple

Your body(temple) has become a reject of His holiness

“The stone the builder rejected has become the chief corner stone”

Receive it anyway; it might wash the Gay away

It might blind your eyes from loving the curves of a woman,

It might purge you of the unholy voices

That sings lullabies to you.

Pretend a little longer, walk slow but steady

You have to get out of here, if they smell it on you?

They will come with swords

While you are asleep, the lord will put a bounty on your head

Wanted!!!

Dead or alive

And if salvation denies you

You will become a gay erasure

Hands stretched,

Belly face down.

Wendy Okeke is a Banker, part-time Poet and Writer with deep rooted passion for Women rights activism. She is an all round lover of the Arts and co-founder of Wellspring of Haven Foundation. Wendy hopes to use her work to create a web that celebrates individuality in Nigeria.