New Year | New Website | New Beginnings

Hi darlings,

Apologies for leaving you for so long. After a year long hiatus, I have finally returned to my first love: writing.

I'm excited for you all to check out the new website and blog. All the pieces from this page is included on the site as well.

Here is a link to the site: www.mensuwritings.com. I hope you find yourself somewhere in the writing.

Love,

Mensu

                           

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"