When I was much, much younger, I had a very low threshold for pains. I was sensitive- physically. You didn’t need to hit me too hard before I bleed. Sometimes while I had my bath my nails would bruise my skin and rip off that part. I was sensitive to touch- “like a girl”. If you hit me a little hard I would feel the agonising pain piercing through me. I cried more easily than any average guy of my age. This wasn’t the problem.

I attended a boarding school. You know what it means to attend a boarding school in Naija. You know all the horrors the junior students are subjected to. In boarding schools you could be slashed with a skin belt for breathing too fast. Those days, I was the most tender amongst my mates. I could start shedding tears before the belt landed on me. And when it did, I felt like my skin had just been ripped out of my bones and my tissues splattering around the floor. But I wasn’t allowed to cry, because I’M SUPPOSED TO BE A MAN.

After the physical pains from the cane, I had to endure the psychological trauma of the jests from everyone about the way I cried “like a girl”. It didn’t matter whether or not Chinyere rolled on the floor and fainted twice when she was flogged, she was a girl and it was allowed for a girl to cry. The same Chinyere was allowed to join the rest of the class to mock how Victor was crying “like a girl”. As if I created myself that way. As if I could make my skin tougher, as if I had the abilities to.

I was sitting in the room with my friends when I got the news of Chioma’s death. Chioma was closer to me than any of those friends sitting around me. I froze for a moment, I could feel my veins popping out and the strains forming in my neck. A vein stroke across my forehead and my breathe suddenly got heavier- but I wasn’t allowed to cry. Because “men don’t cry”. The tears clouded my eyes and then froze. For they weren’t allowed to drop. I shouldn’t let it drop- I’m not a girl.

My life is a book of sad stories. Every page marks the start of a new misfortune. But I’m not allowed to be depressed about it. What is depression to an African? It’s a white man’s illness. Just take Vitamin C and panadol; You’ll be fine.

After my first heartbreak, I faced the wall at night and cried. I was alone, and I cried my eyes out. I never told anyone about it, for the shame of a boy admitting that he cried over a broken heart was worse than the hurt of the heartbreak itself. You are a man, how can you be heartbroken?

For I am a man, and I’m not allowed to cry

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