First—
hold it in your hand.
Feel the weight.
The bruises.
The sun it swallowed.
The hands it passed through before it got to you.
You don’t rush this part.
You let your fingers trace the skin,
feel how tight it is,
how it’s holding it all together
like you do—
when no one’s watching,
and your mother’s tired,
and the world’s got its foot on your door
and your throat.
Now—press in.
With your thumb,
split the surface
like breaking silence
that was never meant to hold you.
Let the skin tear slow.
Let the juice sting your cuticles
like truth stings your memory.
This part?
It gets messy.
Sometimes the rind is thick with history.
Sometimes it don’t wanna let go easy.
Sometimes it’s bitter.
Sometimes you cry.
Keep peeling.
Even when your nails bend back.
Even when the substance clings like guilt,
like grief,
like the lies they fed you in school—
that you were less than,
loud,
lazy,
lacking.
Peel anyway.
No shortcuts.
No knives.
No skipping steps.
This is generational work.
This is your mother’s hands
peeling provisions in silence
after marching,
after mourning.
This is your father’s silence at the dinner table,
tired from a job that pays in disrespect.
This is you—
brilliant
and breaking
but still trying to eat something sweet
from a world that only gave you rind.
Now split it open.
See how each piece holds its own space?
How the fruit don’t rush to be devoured?
That’s you, too.
Soft.
Sectioned.
Sacred.
Eat slowly.
Let the juice run.
Let it remind you
you made it through another day.
Let it remind you
that survival is never pretty—
it is sticky,
it is stained,
it is tender under pressure.
And still,
you rise with flavor.
Still,
you are whole—
even in pieces.

Nathalia Advria Jade Onayomake