I was born with Cleft Palate. My upper lip was half-formed and my nose sat lopsided on my face. My left nostril was wider than the right. The gum that held the tooth that began my canine teeth had a hole, the size of a finger that could snake through to the floor of my left nostril. Every time I brushed, the foam that fomented in my mouth also wormed into my left nostril.
When I was one, my mother returned with me to the hospital to repair my nose, after waiting on God for a miracle that did not happen. She understood the effect it would have on me, if she let me grow with it. At the hospital, the doctor said my case was minor because I could still suck. Other children don’t have the full upper lip, so they can’t suck, he said. He slated the coming month for the surgery. We went home with the bill in mind and prepared for the surgery.
*
The hospital was a giant building that had a mountain-like figure in the dark, my mother said. The gate was black, and a blue roof sat cap-like atop the building. Doctors and Nurses shuffled in and out of rooms and theaters in their white robes. Fan blades rotated nonstop as if they were racing against each other. After my mother had conversed with the nurse, she directed her to the doctor’s office. The doctor was a lanky man who looked like he was in his sixtieth year of witnessing the sun. His office was scanty, save for a long bed at the edge of the window and his desk, right in the middle. He directed my mother back to the foyer and told his nurse to bring me to the theater room.
The foyer had the music of crying babies blaring from theatres and singing mothers awaiting their children. My mother was a chorister in church—her soprano was a replica of an Austrailian Nightingale. She sang as scissors and knives cut through my lips—into my nose. She caterwauled because she had heard stories of babies who didn’t survive surgeries and panicked I’d be one of them. The Doctor finished with me after two hours. He came out with a harried face, blood-moistened garment and a tired smile. How is my son? Asked my mother. He is fine, the nurse will tell you when it’s time to see him, he replied. I was asleep when she came into the room. She wiped her tears and stared at me as though I was a gripping artwork. I slept for hours long enough to contain a voyager’s travel around Europe. She stayed on the bed cradling and sniffing me. She prayed—ate—grabbed my wrist concurrently—to make sure I was alive. I cracked awake with a cry that first went staccato, then a long rhythmless hymn that was quieted by food. After I was done sucking, she lay back on the bed and continued looking at me like a goldsmith admiring a ton of refined gold. I made guttural noises and she replied in the same manner. It continued like a conversation between two world leaders bargaining a trade deal. Later, a young nurse came into my ward asking my mother to leave—obeying hospital instructions demanding patients sleep alone. My mother stoned her a soured gaze and slammed the door.
The morning began with a chicken cooing around the neighborhood and a bird flapping its wings in the sky—as if spreading the curtains of daylight over the darkness of the previous night. My mother came straight to my ward and met me laid face down. I had let out blood on the bed-sheet and the thread that mangled my nose together had fallen off. She picked me up and scanned my face for further injuries. She wound up at the doctor’s office and protesteted what had happened to me. That moment, she was ready to shred earth into pieces. The doctor clung to the wall and watched her rave at him. You’re lucky he didn’t die, he said as she stormed out of his office. Few weeks later, the gash on my lips became a long scar.
*
The first time I was alerted of my cleft palate was in a public bus, I was en-route home from school. One woman who looked like she had exhausted all the make-up in the world, on her face, stared at me like I was telling a joke she couldn’t afford missing. When the bus had thinned of passengers, she turned and asked my mother: wetin do your pikin for mouth? And na fine boy o. My mother gave her a tired smile and replied, nothing.
When I got home, I stared at the mirror with my heart disheveled inside me. The scar had turned into two boil-like balls. My upper lip curved,like a knife had cut out the left part of it. I pulled my elder sister to the mirror stand and compared our looks. Her nose stood straight and her upper lip was full. I felt like an amateur created me. I asked everybody what happened to me but they said I’d understand when I grow up. I shrugged it off and went to play with my flute.
The second time it stamped on me that something mockable was on my face was when I joined in playing street football. I played as a winger whose job was to disturb the defense and score goals. I passed the ball between the middling of the defender and got the ball before he could turn. Hysteria filled the crowd like in the day of Pentecost, as I was close to giving a goal. The weight of the world sat on my shoulders. The people who were bored of staying indoors, came outside, drew benches and watched us play; others watched from their windows. The shops around had many customers who forgot themselves watching us and the other youths clustered around the field, clapping, chanting my name. In a twinkle of an eye, the keeper jumped at the ball like a monkey grabbing banana. The whole world shrugged. One of my teammates who was close to me, in agonizing the miss, said, see your nose, that’s why it is bent. The crowd erupted like a bomb sounded in their midst. I raised my jersey up and covered half of my face. I stood awkwardly and watched the boy walk away with his face down. I didn’t know whether to fight or insult him back. I had just missed a crucial goal. I’d be found guilty for any action I took. I continued the game, played angrier, out-ran players and took shots that stretched the keeper to his last point of width. I finally scored a goal and was thrown up in celebration by my teammates. The insulter attempted to jump on me but I restrained him. When the game had ended, I returned home to the mirror stand and looked deeply at my face. I bawled, my face reddened. I asked my mother what happened to my nose. You were born that way, she said. She asked me what triggered the question, knowing something had happened. I recounted the event that happened at the field. I was made in the image of God, you cannot laugh at me, I’m fine, she told me to say anytime it happened again. My father said, insult your own back, don’t be a coward.
I stopped playing football and became content with watching it on screen. I would lie that I was busy anytime the boys asked me to complete their team. When I moved to another state with my mother, I met new people who were couth. I would play as a keeper for the senior team. I would ruin some games and not get insulted for having a cleft palate. When we returned to Lagos, I avoided the streets and stayed indoors reading—reeling at the profundity of Wole Soyinka’s repertoire.
In my junior secondary school, a boy bullied me for his hobby. He would hit me as much as he liked and sometimes call me shovel mouth. I’d sit and watch him like a lifeless plant. He was twice my size and looked like he could wrestle a dragon. He would hit me, expecting my reaction. I’ll stand awkwardly or lean on the nearest wall till he is done with me. When push came to shove, I reported him to my parents and my mother promised to follow me to school the next day. My father advised me to attack him first if I sensed that he was charging at me. Use stones or sticks or anything dangerous if you sense him coming, don’t come crying to me. When you hit him, he’ll stop bullying you. If you keep crying and watching, he might even kill you.
I squirmed at the thought of revenging on a boy who many believed could fracture a rock. My mother accompanied me to school the next day to make a report. He was summoned to the principal’s office and was asked why he bullied me. He said that it was because he disliked the way I looked. He was flogged by a teacher who had a mastery of the cane. The confidence I had in myself waned. I would hate to appear in public for fear of the public mocking my nose. I started considering my father’s option. Previously when he called me shovel mouth, the class would explode gleefully like they’d just heard Kevin Hart tell a Joke. Once, I called him the gene expression of a baboon after he cursed me publicly. The class cheered and scattered that a teacher to punish us for the noise it caused. That day after school, he made a line in front of me and asked me not to cross it. I crossed it. When he started charging at me, I readied my drawing board with a protruding nail at the edge and glazed his forehead. He bled uncontrollably as though his forehead leaked. I stood there, animated by guilt, afraid, asking myself what I had just done. Guilt that I had bled him. Fear that his revenge might hospitalize me. My elder sister and I ran away to a hidden place until our mother came for us. I was scared of what would happen to me in school the following day. The night ran like someone with a time machine was somewhere quickening the clock. My eyes soured—eyeballs bulge out. When I got into the school premises, I contemplated reporting myself to the principal or going straight to class. My sister got pissed off, she dragged me to my class and made sure I settled before leaving for her classroom. My seat was at the left hand side of the classroom, while his, the right hand side. He grimaced at me, I furrowed my brows in return and shuffled gazes at him and the teacher finding Y on the chalkboard. When the teacher left, everyone stood up and joined their friends. I remained on my seat, expecting him to approach me as usual. Instead he joined his clique in discussing the recent season of Avatar. I barely had friends in the class because I was the boy with a shovel mouth.
*
I gave my life to Christ when I still believed the hypothesis that God prioritized children’s prayers over adults’. Reading the bible became a daily routine—sometimes two chapters, other times four, if they were not scary. I was told of the benefit of working for God, a swiftly answered prayer. I joined the choristers and sang every service day. My voice was a blend of tenor and bass. It countered melodies on chilly Sunday mornings. The church was the only place I was not shy of going public. I sang to the heavens and the angels floated in the hysteria of my voice. God was pleased; he paced the heavens, marveling at what he did with my voice. I prayed fervently. I joined my mother on the Saturdays she went on dry fasting. After preaching, the pastor usually had special prayer sessions for those who needed healing. He’d instruct everyone to shut their eyes, place their hands on the part that needed healing. I’d oblige, placing one hand on my nose, raising the other, screaming amen at his in Jesus name. If my mother was around me, she’d place her hand over my face while I shut my eyes in hopes that my cleft palate morphed into full lips and an upright nose. I hoped for years. Nothing happened. I would go to the mirror stand and stare at myself after each prayer session. I’d hate how I appeared.
*
My smile was awkward. My bent incisor showed at any slight lifting of my upper lip and it cracked people up. I learned to keep my face scrunched. It disfigured my pictures and videos. Cameras exaggerated the slant of my nose and the half of my upper lip. Once, a friend commented that I stopped taking selfies due to how much the cleft palate disfigured them. He advised me to take more portraits or appear in group pictures instead. I cried to my mother asking how come my case was natural. Why I had to be born with something that had cost me my self-love. I was stressed when I was pregnant for you. Your father had traveled to Germany for greener pastures. I was left alone until my niece came along to help me. But before then, I was doing everything; from climbing the stairs, to crossing the roads, to taking care of your elder sister. It wasn’t easy for me. Babies are born like this due to the stress their mothers endured during pregnancy. Her words sounded one after the other. Water streamed from her eyes. She hugged me and kissed me on the forehead.
*
I had grown accustomed to the snares. The unsolicited pity, the bombardment of insults from every nook and cranny, the token consolation, the grimaces, the onslaught of stares. But I survived.
One day at the bank, on the long queue, under the sun that burned as if it deigned to melt skins. A man with an oblong head, dark face and flushed cheek, approached me proposing to repair my nose for free. I looked at him askance and turned away. He left my presence and motioned into the bank. When I got to the gate, he appeared again. I’m not here to hurt you, we can repair your nose for you. I work at the Lautech teaching hospital. This is my number, he said. I’m not mentally ready for this, I replied. Call me whenever you are ready, we are always available. I took his number and skidded home. I couldn’t sit. Twenty one years of my life, I had lived with a halved lip and lopsided nose. It was how people identified me; that boy with the bending nose. I bawled, called him, and accepted his offer.
I was placed on admission the moment I stepped into the hospital and picked my card. The next day, I was slated to go under the knife. The tall, lanky doctor whose hair was already graying, feared my heart would leap out of its cage, and postponed the surgery by three days. I received calls from friends and family members, wishing me well. I announced to them that the surgery had been postponed. I settled inside my ward and loved looking outside the window—at the birds playing on the trees and the leaves shivering in the wind. I met other patients whose clefts were worse. One woman had a gash on her upper lip as if a hot iron had passed through it. I saw her in my dream that night, wailing, beating her son for what he did and didn’t do. I wondered how she had managed through life with it. I prayed for her inwardly.
On the morning of the surgery, a friend asked whether I won’t go back to God. Won’t you believe in God now? What if you don’t survive the surgery? He said. I brooded on it as I took my bath; what if this is the last bath you’d take? I’ll not feel anything afterwards. I snapped out of the thought, hurried my shower and paced back to my ward. The nurse was already waiting with a garment and a wheelchair. After I wore the garment, I looked at my mother’s eyes and hugged her as if it were the last time I would see her. The nurse smiled. I sat in the wheelchair and got wheeled down to the theater. On entering the theater, surgical knives and scissors, blue gloves, syringes, all laid on a tray. I lay on the operating table. A prayer was said. The surgical light was tilted down my face, the doctor drew a pattern on my lips and I was injected with anesthesia. I slept off immediately. My Mother sat in the foyer, this time without serenading me.
Mummy, have they finished? she said I asked after hours of sleeping. A bucket was kept beside me in case I wanted to puke. I couldn’t move far because my hand was connected to a pint of drip. I requested for a mirror. Nobody had one close by. I asked the nurse to unplug the drip so I could stare at my new face in the window. She refused. I stayed on my bed imagining my new look. I remembered the days I had to exchange words with people to survive. The bouts of fist slamming I had to engage in to be left alone. I remembered the girl that asked me what happened to my nose in front of the class and I had to lie it was a bicycle accident. I once had a bicycle accident during a bicycle race. I hit my nose on a sharp stone and blood gushed from my nose like a tap switched to the highest flow. But it wasn’t why I had a cleft palate. I became anxious and removed the drip myself. I found a window that served as a mirror. My upper lip swole like the doctors had stuffed it with a balloon during surgery. My nose stood upright. My face punctuated with a smile. My cheeks fattened and I didn’t mind the incisor that was bent. I went back to my room, giddy.
Weeks after the surgery, I returned to loosen the thread that mangled my nose together with my lips. The light-skinned, petite nurse loosened each entanglement with a pin. I bled. It will stop in no time, she said and dismissed me. On my way home, the police stopped my vehicle on a road occupied by trees and birds and bushes and a few commuters. I was fished out of the passengers’ seat for interrogation. I brought out my pockets following the instructions of the police. One of the officers grabbed my phone in search of anything incriminating. My answers to their questions were inaudible due to the immense pain I felt from the de-entanglement of the thread. Prior to the surgery, I communicated with everyone on a piece of paper. I had to shut my mouth due to the pain that would ensue if I opened it. They assumed I was a fraudster. They saw my lips bleed. They assumed I was beaten up where I went to fight. After finding nothing incriminating in my phone, they requested for money. I told them I had just left the hospital, but it was as though I was talking to statues. I yielded and gave them #3000 from my wallet.
Inside the bus, passengers asked me why I kept my hair full and why my mouth bled. I kept still. They insisted I was a fraudster who only escaped police badgering out of luck. They advised me to cut off my hair. I remained still till their voices faded.
When I got home, I wrote a poem in which I said:
I have a scar on my upper lip, but like the commas make everything beautiful in a poem,
this too is beautiful. I mean scar when I say beauty clasped between the grasp of
imperfection.
I admired myself in the mirror with a bright face, and a long smile, for hours.
About the Author:
Paul Chuks is a songwriter, poet, and storyteller. He is of Igbo descent and resides in Nigeria. His works have appeared or are forthcoming in The Atlanta Review, Heavy Feather Review, Trampset, Anomalous Press & elsewhere. He is a reader at Palette Poetry, Mud Season Review, and The Forge. When he’s not reading or writing, he’s analyzing hip-hop verses or moving his body rhythmically to the songs raving on his roof.
*Feature image by Dasha Yukhymyuk on Unsplash
Isele Magazine 
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