inzozi: love edition

inzozi love 1st EDition, february 18, 2022

curated by angel adaeze ogoemesim & keza ruranga

zine time! hello & welcome to our first edition of inzozi. we hope you enjoy and take something away from some of our thoughts, reflections, and favorite pieces relating to love. we want to hear how you feel about it so please let us know what you liked! with love, aao & keza

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Toni Morrison

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i was reading all about love for what feels like almost a year (not really, but oh so long!) and it continues to give me so much each time that i revisit it. the following quotes are from a few of my favorite parts of the book that relate to unlearning and reframing some common notions on romantic (or platonic) love. these are paired with some questions for you to think of as you flip through the zine & or if you read the full text. keza❁

“In her first book, The Bluest Eye, novelist Toni Morrison identifies the idea of romantic love as 'one of the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought.’ Its destructiveness resides in the notion that we come to love with no will and no capacity to choose. This illusion, perpetuated by so much romantic lore, stands in the way of our learning how to love. To sustain our fantasy we substitute romance for love." p. 170

Q: what are some destructive or unrealistic elements within my own idea of romance that i hold onto? write your answer here:

"The message they give women is that relationships are always and only about power, manipulation, and coercion, about getting someone else to do what you want them to, even if it is against their will." p. 154

Q: in what ways could i be engaging with power dynamics or imbalances that exist in my relationships?

write your answer here:

answer + thoughts from me: there's so much shame in potentially coming off as over interested or needy for some people (including myself ( _ )). i would rather feel like i'm on the receiving end of things until i feel secure, but, i know it is not how i want to move through any interpersonal relationship. i feel that even small expressions of a power struggle can quickly wear away at trust and comfort. ultimately, i want to be on the same page/same 'side' as anyone i love.

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“Deep commitment does not guarantee the success of the relationship but does help more than any other factor to ensure it...Anyone who is truly concerned for the spiritual growth of another knows, consciously or instinctively, that he or she can significantly foster that growth only through a relationship of constancy.” p. 158

Q: how might i avoid putting weight and constancy in developing relationships? why is that? write your answer here:

Sacrament of Bodies Romeo Oriogun

- After Chris Abani It is true, the couch can't hold a boy ready to be split into love, when we watch the rerun of movies isn't it to tell our bodies that our desire won't kill us?

The light flickers, the hero is at the brink of death.

Take this piece of flesh, my finger in your mouth is a homily.

Remember the poor are those whose nights are filled with dreams of sailing.

Give to those who asked to be filled with light. Amen.

What do we know truly about darkness?

Resurrection is us walking into another room, call it survival. Amen.

Every mass begins with surrender.

The flesh is holy like sex. Amen.

The tongue gives. The tongue receives, Amen. Drink every river that knows our thirst.

Some Obelisks were erected to remember every savior that walked through a city just like I walked through you.

Repeat the words. Bathrooms are sacred places to know the inside of a lover.

Give the body what it deserves.

This is what it means to know God, even if every God demands our death.

Moaning is knowing how a grave feels when it can't sing.

Amen. Rinse out every mouth that touched your lips, for I am jealous. When I come, my vengeance wrecks a body. Amen.

Keep my name in your mouth for it is a doorway.

Watch as I fold the desire into a bed under the moon.

Every miracle is only a man saying I will watch another moon show us that the night is never truly dark.

For this is the way to finding the light.

HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN SUNDAY?

intimacy in isolation by akwaeke emezi "If I lie naked in a bed with someone else, touching their body and seeing only the fantasy of them that I’ve created, are they even there?

What if it’s just me and my imagination, something I created on the scaffold of their flesh? What if I’ve just turned them into a proxy of myself?"

"Maybe they’re doing the same thing to me, making me a mirror. Maybe that’s the unspoken contract: to be blank spaces for each other, holding the maps of desire that are projected on our skins, fingers lacing electric as they press against spines and shoulder blades. I often imagine the aesthetic of our bodies in proximity — this dark warm skin, thick black hair, white teeth breaking apart in pleasure."

RED HOT DESIRE He was looking at me and talking to someone else, and his mouth grew wide and narrow, small and large, and I wanted him to notice me, but there was so much noise: all the people standing in the gallery, sheltering themselves from the strong rain, had something they wanted to say, something not about the weather (that was by now beyond comment) but about their lives, their disappointments most likely, for joy is so short lived there isn't enough time to dwell on the occurrence. The noise, which started as a hum, grew to a loud din, and the loud din had an unpleasant taste of metal and vinegar, but I knew his mouth could take it away if only I could get to it ; so I called out my own name, and I knew he heard me immediately, but he wouldn't stop speaking to the woman he was talking to, so I had to call out my name again and again until he stopped, and by that time my name was like a chain around him. And when our eyes met, we laughed, because we were happy, but it was frightening, for that gaze asked everything: who would betray whom, who would be captive, who would be captor, who would give and who would take, what would I do. And when our eyes met and we laughed at the same time, I said, "I love you, I love you," and he said, "I know." He did not say it out of vanity, he did not say it out of conceit, he only said it because it was true.

Jamaica Kincaid - The Autobiography of My Mother

Praise stank, like overripe cantaloupe and sweat, and it was delicious.

On a Sunday. We met at REDEEMED CHRISTIAN CHURCH OF GOD TABERNACLE OF PEACE on a hot Sunday that caused the congested high school auditorium where service was held to smell stale and sour.

Praisepraisepraise: seated on the off-white plastic chair dirtied by use, sweating, and twirling short, coiled hair and picking at splintered nails, mouth aslant, and glazed eyes. And me: watchful / aching / unsure, the pastor’s gurgly voice swirling around me. I’ve noticed Praise before—bent over and mumbling silently in prayer, or shaking the ichaka rattle so that the laced beads hit the gourd during praise and worship, or mouth full of firstSundayofthemonth plantain and smoked chicken and jollof rice, or openly laughing at some thing or the other: exposed crowded teeth pressed into blackpink gums, Praise’s gentle laughter fallen petals at my feet. But on this particular Sunday— Praise said: ‘tell me your name’ in a silky voice that warmed my ears and what else could I do but tell Praise my name, so I said: ‘WeGiveHimAllTheGlory, or Glory for short’ and Praise laughed a bubbly laugh that I would come to crave and muttered fucking ndi Igbo. And I laughed and laughed along with Praise, imagining our laughter whirl and combine above us. * It was as simple as ‘letmeholdyou’ unrestrained and greedy, an outstretched body the reply. And how when I entered, feeling so perfectly snug in all the weight of this person’s collapsed eager body, that I felt a sweet pain that left me delirious and hungry for more. & how even after / after I had seen all of Praise—hard, deep and smooth black bare-bodied / after I touched all of Praise, stroking warm wet soft and hard flesh, the two of us loose-limbed and tired and lucid / after I tasted all of Praise: my tongue delicately tracing the bends and folds of Praise’s salty-sweet body / after I smelt all of Praise, my nose holding onto that scent that seemed to say: this is me, in all of myself / after all the honeyed kisses and nighttime whispers and tangled legs / after I got all of my Praise / even after all of that / still, my belly ached and groaned for more.

excerpt from 'Lucky Me' by aao

thank you for joining us!