They told me I would like it. Womanhood, wrapped in ribbons and reverence. I have since come to realize it was romanticized, meant to draw me in, make me want to fall to my knees and kiss them. She told me, wailing, and I knew, as if I had always known. She told me like it was esoteric, a secret too dangerous for them to hear, lest they kill me, remind me what happens to women who know too much. But I did not keep it. I told it to the world in quidditty, almost like it was borne from me. I showed them, made them feel it, that seraphic feeling of freedom, of one’s own selfness. We didn’t have to kiss anyone. We just had to be. —Omokushe