Ash Wednesday

It is Ash Wednesday
The air smells of cold dust and morning birds
We wake up by 6 am, Fola, Kemi and I.
Fola is my best friend, well it is complicated now
But yes, Fola is my "best friend" who is sleeping over because his parents are out of town.
Kemi is my sister.

Mom and Dad woke us up at 6am.
Although I was up already.
I heard the door of the bathroom in mum's room open.
That was when I ran back to my room.

It is Ash Wednesday.
My clothes have been picked out already.
The kind of white that brings the transfiguration to mind
It makes me look pure; like a virgin
Which I was, technically.

Mom and Dad went to bed at 10:18 pm.
I know, because I checked more than once.
Fola must have been checking too
Because he came into my room at 10:20,
To ask that I came over to his room to talk
One of our talks that rolled into dawn and left our days drowsy
A good kind of drowsy.

It is Ash Wednesday.
Fola is an altar server,
I have never been one to serve in church.
Fola's white makes him look like an angel, a virgin
Which he was, technically.

Fola and I are in his room
Our intoxicating conversation is heating
He uses this as an opportunity to come close.
To make our conversation melt into a kiss
I do not know how.
But soon after the melting, our words were only being spoken in the language of body parts.

Fola's hands are cold as they wrap
Caress
Speak
In tongues,
Vulgar tongues.
Our conversation was full of insides.
My hands in his pants.
His in my bra,
Then my pants

And when it is over.
I am staring at this stranger
This part of him I had never met before
Fola's fingers are no longer virgins.
Neither is my mouth
Nor his mouth
Nor my fingers
and eyes.

But technically, we are virgins.
Because no one tells you that sometimes, your body parts loose their virginity first.
That sometimes,
On Ash Wednesday, you would wake up in a pool of regret.
Confused by your own curiosity
That you would brush your teeth until your gum is bleeding but still unclean.

But we are in today
And it is Ash Wednesday
And my dress feels whiter than my soul
And Fola wraps the same fingers that have been in ungodly places around the bowl containing ash
As the father presses against my forehead.
"From dust you came and unto dust you shall return"

You x Your Demons

You cannot,

I repeat, cannot,

Live your life for other people,

Nor can you live your life by others’ rules.

Because at the end of the day,

When you are left alone to your demons,

You are truly, thoroughly, alone.

And only you can see every one of your demons’ faces.

You can try to sketch a picture to someone else.

Like a person who has just been molested by a stranger explaining to the police what he did.

But only you knows his face,

And where he touched,

And how it burns.

This is why you cannot let anyone tell you to “get over it”.

This is why you cannot beat yourself up over someone’s opinion on how you should deal.

Because, I’m sorry honey, but you are alone.

You alone must sit with the devil and negotiate your sanity and soul.

So love yourself enough to explore the entirety of the aftermath
To be overly emotional if you have to.

You are free, to crumble.

If for nothing else, for the purpose of rebuilding.

Glass Walls

There was so much left unsaid in the space between her words.

It was like she was speaking two different languages and I could only grasp one.

That was why I fell utterly captivated by her.

Her mind was a closed playground with glass walls. I could see the thoughts bouncing around but could never get in.

So I developed a code of action.

It was easy, truly,

Or at least it was supposed to be.

int main()

{

// To ask Adanna out;

if (she says no) {

cout << “Give her time

  Become friends

  Try again”;  

  

}

else {

cout << “Loose your shit, she said yes?!!”;

}

      do {

cout << “Give her time

    Ask her out again”;

      }

while (she said no);

}

Pretty much, the plan was to not give up.

And in the case that she said yes to go out with me even once,

I would take the bandage off parts of myself I have only imagined showing anyone else.

And she would fill the cracks of insecurity in the bearings of my soul like silver lacquer in old pottery.

****

She said yes.

It was a crappy day; I had missed the same bus twice that morning (don’t ask how) and was met by a downpour on my way home from classes which led to my dinner being soaked and inedible.

But then she called;

“Hey, are you home? I was thinking of coming over”

Her voice sent electricity to parts of my body I did not know could be reached by sound.

She sat on my bed. Her eyes holding words I could not comprehend. And I feared that that was why she came, she had realized I did not understand her completely and came to let me down nicely.

But then she said;

“So… yes…”

I sat staring at her, still half expecting a negative end to her statement. There was (what felt like) a long awkward silence and I did not realize she was awaiting my reply until she said;

“…Mikun, I mean if you want to go out with me, I would love to” she was now half giggling, half smiling at my confusion.

Of course at this time, the gods of awkwardness descended on me and I was unsure of what to say/do with my face.

And I wanted so bad to kiss her, to hold her face in my palms and kiss her forehead and lips and cheeks. But I didn’t, I couldn’t. Because in her eyes, I would become the kind of person that kissed a girl as soon as he got the chance. But honestly it wasn’t lust. Rather, it was her childlike smile that cracked open to reveal her slight gap tooth that made me wonder what it felt like to be the one parting her lips.

****

38 weeks and 5 days later, I remember noticing cracks in the glass walls. But they had been cracked for a while now and never quite came down. It felt like it was beyond her control, like she did not hold the keys to her own soul. 

Like the walls were built out of something that happened a long time ago and something visited every year to rebuild, reseal; there was no getting in. And my soul grew cold from being bare and alone, Feet tired from running around the corners of her playground, wrists sore from pounding against its walls.

So that was when I told her I had to leave.

Utterly in love with her as I was.

There was nothing left within me to give.

In many ways, she was an open book… just filled encryptions I would never completely fathom.

...

Because time is cruel.

in the way it seeps into the meeting of our palms and pulls us away.

And i fear for the day 

that i will feel for the warmth of your palm

in the miles and miles between

but you, and your undimming warmth would have walked away

Never to feel nor hold nor dream with nor hear laugh again

It would be a void

and i would feel a sinking into myself

to rediscover who i was with you

how i possibly became worthy to hold your hand in the first place

and how i could ever. ever let go.

Stop. Start. Stop.

It felt like being left open on an operating table.

The surgeon was precise, calm, calculating.

From the first incision,

Scalpel to skin.

He would look into my eyes and reassure,

Every layer was gold, or dirt leading to gold. I do not remember which, but the thought that there was gold in me felt good… really good

Hindsight says I was more like an onion. Or better still, a candle; burning out. Slowly.

The surgeon was somewhat distant.

Reminding me that he was just a surgeon.

There was nothing more.

And he would only be around for a short while.

But how do you not think more of someone taking off the shield of your skin,

Digging to the gold of your heart.

And truly, I may have been burning, but candles are pretty.

So pretty...

He was so pretty, and he smelt… oh, he smelt of heaven.

If we could smell heaven.

Now I realize he smelt of heaven probably because I was dying.

And candles, with their flame and their glorious scent. You do not realize they are dying; burning out.  Slowly.

And he was a paradise kind of afterlife.

A light I would willingly walk into.

Hindsight says I was the light.

He was just a mirror; a window.

So I left my light and walked into my reflection I saw in his eyes.

Thinking he was the light, my light.

But the thing about windows is that they are empty.

It is a glass designed to show you a reflection of yourself and the world at a glance.

But you smash through  it and there is no soul behind.

It’s empty, and cold.

So I left my light and walked into what heaven must smell like and look like and taste like. And when I hit against the window.

Damn.

Fire and cold do not marry well.

They clash like thunder. Leaving behind a bitter kind of destruction.

It was like being left open on an operating table.

And when he reached the core of what he was digging for.

When the walls came down.

Like a beating heart in a baby’s hands,

It slipped,

Fell,

Cracked.

Did he forget that he was holding gold?

I do not know exactly what happened after that.

But after he left,

It felt like what I imagine being left open on an operating table would feel like; denuding.

My insides were cold and dwindling.

Gold and warmth;

Stopping

Starting

And stopping again.

...

I invest too  much.

I care to the boiling point of damage.

I often crave for a time in which I am unaware of the past, present and future.

I crave for the lightness that comes with oblivion.

But to never feel is to never live.

As to live without feeling is to never experience the inebriating ebullience that resides in the corners of life.

So I must be unafraid of the dark.

Of the often understated suffering that comes with the loss of someone still living.

"...to love is to stand naked"

Vacant Houses

"They told me that this is what I should do."

"Who told you?"

"They told me this is what you do when you loose someone you love. They said you come to therapy. They said you would be sad. They said you will wait to hear his voice. Or see his call light up your phone. But it will never happen. They said it will be crushing, and I will want to go. But I will get past that stage. That after a while, I will become scared of forgetting; what he sounded like, the melody of his laughter, the character of his existence. They told me I will be scared that it will all slip away. That at some point I will only have faint actual memories but very real emotions. I will remember how it felt but not what it looked like. They gave me the map and told me where to walk. I think I am in the part where I should want to go. The part that I cry or hold back tears and wait for my phone to ring."

"Who is this 'they'"?

"But that is not why I am here, the reason I am here is because I heard yesterday, that I was cold. He said; 'who made you this cold?'"

"Who is he?"

"My ex-boyfriend, it was in high school. I ran into him yesterday. He didn't know I had just lost him. So he didn't have that pity in his eyes that everyone has now, kind of like the look you had in your eyes before I started to speak."

"I do not pity you, I am here..."

"Do I seem cold to you?"

"I do not..."

"Because he said it and... I remembered what I was like with him. It was easy. I was "in love" with him, and it was easy. It was the kind of love that these 'mature' fools say 'what do they know about love?' to. Because it was easy and they did not believe nor understand how love could be happy or easy or light. They did not believe that a word built on a feeling of utter joy should be easy. Why? Why would you discredit my love because it is not as corrosive as yours?"

"..."

"But I do not love him. I feel like I do not love anyone. I feel like a vacant house, like someone came in and turned all my lights off. I feel like darkness. Have you ever felt like darkness? It is a feeling that makes you not want to see the sun in the morning. Is that what they meant by I will want to go? Because I do not want to go anywhere, I do not want to die. I just do not want to see the sun. My sadness is boring. I do not have nightmares. I do not wake up panting or looking for someone to call. A friend or pastor maybe? I do not. I am just... bland, and I want to sleep or be unconscious all the time. Because it is familiar, like going back home for some hours."

"..."

"You are nodding your head. Are there no words in your mouth? Or have you realised that I did not come here for therapy, I just came to talk. Or maybe that is the therapy, paying someone to listen to you, because you feel like a child suffocating on the side of the road and no one can hear you scream. Is that why people come here?"

"People have diff..."

"I am sorry, I haven't spoken this much in a very long time. Not since he was alive, which was about 7 months ago."

"What happened?"

"Hm, the short story is that he was 6 and I was 5. Not in age, in everything else. He would get the first notice, I was an after thought. A piece of an already completed puzzle, not that I minded, he was a big piece that completed my puzzle.

But that day I got the call from the clinic. The day I had seen him earlier with someone else, there was no feeling. There was no shattering. My heart, my world, my mind was excruciatingly silent. That was the day my lights were turned off

That moment that should have changed everything.

In that moment that this man I had taken to the presence of God, the one I had vowed to my creator to spend the rest of my life with, was now right in front of my car, kissing another woman in the middle of the a sidewalk. He was obviously not aware that I was watching or did not care?

Anyways, if there was ever a moment, that was the one. That was the moment I should have erupted, for someone who had erupted about much smaller things. For someone who had been refereed to as a ticking grenade. That was the time to explode.

But there was something about this.

This kind of pain, or shame?

There was something muting about it.

So I did not say a thing.

I did not move, my face felt like it was made of steel.

I did not wipe the tears welling up in my eyes. I just kept driving towards them. I do not know if it was on purpose or not but I drove home afterwards and got ready to confess to the police, or whoever it was that may have seen me. That was when I wanted to go, not now.

So when the clinic called, the phone ringing loudly from the kitchen.

I sat on a chair next to the dinning table, my face as still as before, watching a picture from my wedding day that hung on the wall above the TV.

Everything, every feeling with this man, every smile, intimacy, laughter, every moment. It was all a kind of mockery now."

"They said I am cold. But I do not know if I would rather be cold than have the burden of emotion.

Because I have learned that erotic love is like a catapult. There is only so far it can stretch before it comes back with a sting that turns all your lights... off."

Your eyes.

It feels like I could possibly change the world
Your world..

When I am with you.
When you look at me those eyes.

It feels like the littlest things about me could possibly change your world.

It's in the intricacy of your attention.
The way your eyes trail my cheekbones as they rise with a smile or fall after a long day.
The way you trail the story of my words, lining them with relentless assurance.

It's the incredulous feeling of you being incessantly in love with the musings of my mind.

It's in the lightness,
The feeling of being a child again when I am with you.

The swelling of self,

This newly found confidence.

This absence of calculation,

This comfort in our silences

The flexibility of your affection.

It's all in your eyes,

And when I speak...

About my day or an idea I just had.

The intricacy of your love,
Your smile,
Your eyes,
Oh, your magical eyes...
They wrap around me.

....And it feels like I could possibly change the world.  : )