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89
Student @ Nnamdi Azikiwe University,Awka.
THERE'S SOAP IN MY HAIR - growing up too early.
<p><span style="background-color: transparent;">Control was the first language I learned.</span></p><p>Control my tone to de-escalate.</p><p>Control the budget.</p><p>Control my face into calm competence.</p><p>If I was careful enough, maybe everything wouldn’t fall apart.</p><p>I didn’t call it manipulation. I called it managing.</p><p>Managing moods. Managing outcomes. Anticipating disasters before they bloomed.</p><p>Not out of malice</p><p>Out of survival.</p><p>I became very good at disappearing while still holding things together.</p><p>Silence became my refuge.</p><p>The heavy, listening kind.</p><p>It was armor and it was a cage.</p><p>In silence, to perform. I just had to watch.</p><p>Then came the regression.</p><p>A sudden cry over something small.</p><p>Comfort found in childish places.</p><p>It felt humiliating, but it was honest—</p><p>a younger version of me finally asking to exist.</p><p>All of it was pain.</p><p>The pain of a season stolen before it could even begin.</p><p>Now I’m in the shower. The water too hot.</p><p>Trying to rinse the day away, trying to feel clean.</p><p>But the suds cling stubbornly to my hair.</p><p>The ritual isn’t finished.</p><p>The control slips.</p><p>The silence pauses.</p><p>The child and the adult collide in this small, ordinary failure.</p><p>I close my eyes and laugh softly as the water runs.</p><p>Well.</p><p>There’s soap in my hair.</p>
25
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