our first time, our last time

By Eain Arinze

and i’m not saying that what she did was right but
im saying that it takes a village but
she didn’t have a village
so she made one from her two hands
and when her husband beat her
she beat the girl
and the girl beat her brother who had nobody to beat
so he cut the dog’s hair
and plucked the limbs from spiders before releasing them
and who’s to say she was wrong to instill fear because fear is what kept us human and without it
people die like her brother on the train tracks behind the school garden
and sometimes when the hands came down, they wouldn’t beat but shake, as if to say
 
 
are you still alive because i don’t want to go through this alone

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​Eain Arinze is a Nigerian-American author, born and raised in Washington, D.C. Her work often deals with grief, shame, and the body as an archive. She now lives in San Francisco, where she also enjoys singing opera and cuddling with her cat, Toni Meowison. She was a 2026 finalist for the Iowa Review award in fiction.