Lessons on Love

 "...Begging for love is suicide...You deserve more attention than his phone, you deserve quality time not just time, you deserve effort not just routines, you deserve to be treated as if you are priority not the last thing on his checklist. "

 1. Love can be paralysing

You wondered why you couldn't leave him. Everyday you practised your farewell speech which was based on how you knew he didn't love you anymore and you deserved better. Things were different from how it was when it began. You no longer got his cute morning texts, he stopped calling and he took hours to respond to your messages. You felt like you were begging him to love you each time you complained about how things were not the same. How can you be with someone and still feel so alone? Everyday you felt a new pain, everyday you wanted to leave, but instead of the farewell speech, you called him in defeat with your voice reeking of neediness to 'check on him and find out how his day was going' because somehow his name took root in your throat and everything reminded you of his mouth. How could you possibly leave when you had drowned yourself in him and you felt completely helpless?

2. Unrequited love is one of the most horrible things in this world, but loving someone who loves another is worse.

Where did you learn to find the unavailable so attractive? Your first kiss was with a guy who would bully you in front of his friends but call you to the empty classroom to reach for the under of your skirt. Your first love was a guy with a girlfriend. And she was beautiful and perfect in a way you felt you could never be. You would watch him carry her up in his arms with his eyes full of love. After years of loving men who never chose you, you never felt enough. You tried to change and become more like her - softer, prettier. You closed your mouth more. He didn't need to hear about how your day went, your achievements and your big dreams. He didn't need to know what made you smile. You tried being a girl you thought would be easier to love. But was that enough still?

3. Love the one that loves you. It's safer.

Why do you do this - want the one that doesn't want you? Leave the one that wants to stay? You pick the one that makes you worry he's with someone else when he's not with you. He tells you no man can live up to the one in your head. That you're being too needy, too sensitive. When all you want is to feel loved. How hard is it? You don't notice the one that leaves 5 missed calls on your phone and messages. You don't notice the one that keeps begging for a chance.

4. Learn from your mother's silent regrets.

Your mother learnt to live with a closed mouth and a fat body full of disappointments; all the years of being an accessory to a man – to feed his ego 'his silent obedient wife who cooks good meals, cleans the house, washes his clothes, gives him children- more importantly male children'. A silent obedient wife who looks the other way when her husband comes home drunk and reeking of adultery. A silent obedient wife that does not question his authority. "Marriage isn't about love, it's about tolerating the other person". How long can you tolerate a person for? Every year the same weak smile, the same sad eyes, the same grave nod in agreement to whatever her husband says, the same silence. Is that living?

5. Go spiritual 

Prayer is the key we are told. After how many heartbreaks is someone allowed to run mad? Sometimes you would wonder how inhuman and cruel what they did was; come into your life like that, turn everything upside down, make you love them and then leave like nothing happened while you're left to hold together the pieces of what is left of your heart. There should be a special place in hell for people like them. There should be an eleventh commandment condemning such an act. "Thou shalt not destroy thy neighbour's life in the name of love". You asked God time and time again, "Why did you let this happen?" "Why did you let me meet this person?" "Was I not just fine by myself?” Each night night you recited the name of all the demons that had broken you like a song while clutching to your chest. Will the pain ever go away? You wish them hell, you wish them pain, you pray someone destroys them the same way they destroyed you.

Bye 2016, Hello 2017

A lot can happen in a year.
A year can change you to become this totally different person that you cannot recognize
A year can carry so much burden
A year can bring a whole bunch of wrong people but one right person
A year can teach you new things
A year can bring so much hurt...

When we love, we really love...

Everything grows still and tonight I remember you by the silences, the words that didn't fall out of my mouth.

Like the times when we are together with my body leaning on yours or you're holding me or when our fingers just intertwine like they are saying the things our mouth don't say. Sometimes I love you isn't enough to explain that you're the one rooted in my heart with every vein in my body carrying a trace of my longing for you.

I miss you when we aren't together. And sometimes when I'm up at night I'd spread my dreams of us out like stars and wish there was some magic in the world so I could get an eternity with you, one where no one knew who we were, one with no past where our love would be simple and we could be extraordinary together.

2.11.2016

Be hopeful -

Wait for the day you fall so effortlessly for something/someone beyond a fantasy.

It will happen -

Stop settling and giving yourself to the wrong people.

Believe in yourself-

That you deserve better than second hand promises. That you deserve better than someone who isn't afraid to lose you.

Forgive yourself -

For the people you cut yourself and bled for. For the ones that turned their backs at you without even flinching. For wanting to make a home out of another person. For desperately needing someone to hold you as tight as your skin.

Forgive yourself again -

For being ashamed of the things you did in the name of love. Love was the thing that bent you over backwards and fucked  you till you forgot your name. Love was the thing that beat you into acceptance, made you smaller, made you shut your mouth more. Love was the thing that choked you with every breath.

Let go -

Of the truck load of past. It is too heavy for the journey ahead of you. You simply cannot balance all that regret alongside all that dream and ambition.

How to be in a relationship

1. Strive to become what he wants in a woman (starve yourself, do squats, learn to cook numerous delicaces). What you want in a man is not important. You should be grateful you even have a man.

2. Get used to the loneliness that comes with being in a relationship.  No one likes a needy girl. Understand that your man has other important things in his life like football, drinking with his friends, work, family, etc.

3. Accept whatever you get; lies, unreturned phone calls, dates only once a week, lateness to all the dates.

4. Do not complain about anything. Its not attractive to nag. Learn to close your mouth more. Don't argue, it's not necessary.  Your opinions don't matter. His beliefs should be your beliefs.

5.  There will be other girls. You can't simply hold a man down. Be thankful you're the one he chose to be his girlfriend.

6. Sex is the most important factor in a relationship. So darling, don't be naive, open your tight shut legs up for your man. Show him how much of a secret pornstar you are if you want to keep that man.

7. Be a mind reader. You're supposed to know; what your man is thinking of,  when he's in a mood, what he wants.  Men hate talking about feelings and they get upset when you don't understand. So the gift of mind reading is important so you'll know and act in the appropriate manner.

8. Don't have high expectations. Don't have expectations at all. Don't expect romance, flowers or random gifts. They're fairytales. They happen only in movies.

9. Look pretty for your man always; draw your brows, contour your face. He needs to be proud youre his girl. It doesn't matter if he's an ugly baboon and looks as fat as five bags of rice combined. He's your baby, so beautiful on the inside.

10. Forgive yourself for settling for something less than you deserve. It makes it easier.

12.09.2016

My voice was born from years of silence, years of being afraid, years of being ashamed, years of being in unbearable pain - the type of pain where in the deadness of the night you're curled on your bed clutching your heart, barely breathing, sobbing uncontrollably.

My voice is my mother, pouring her entire soul, blood and energy into someone - without wanting anything in return.

My voice is my father who fought wars within- the ones we never understood. All we did was hide from the stern man who always found something wrong with us.

My voice is the girl who was let to be vulnerable,  the one who opened herself up like a flower to the worst kind of dog that preyed on her vulnerability and left her feeling less of a person - questioning whether she was enough.

My voice is the child who was so beautifully born, but carries the burden of his father's words - stupid, bad, worthless, lazy, dumb.

My voice is the girl who is still looking for love at 30. Having no one stepping forward to call you his own does something to you. You begin to think there is something wrong with you. You become desperate to find love in anybody - a wife beater, a drunk, a womaniser.

My voice is the boy who was raped at 5 for the first time by his uncle who was giving him a bath. He slapped you and told you you're not man enough to bear a little pain. You grew up shrinking inside, dreading going into the men's washroom anywhere for fear of being abused.

My voice are the helpless people on the streets of lagos, the ones who sleep by the road side, the ones who do not know where the next meal will come from, the ones with throats so dry they could barely beg.

The Wardrobe of Lonely

How do you pick what to wear the next day?

Do you pick an outfit that shows your lonely. The sadness you attempt to carefully tuck away in the morning, the sadness you cover with the concealer, trace with your eyeliner, you’ve tried to hide it, haven’t you? It still escapes, pouring through your forced smile and awkward conversations with strange men that will never call you home. They listen well enough to know when you’re horny, they call you beautiful. If they stay silent, if they listen long enough they will hear your desperation, smell it off you, strong as shisha from a magic hookah. It’s a good thing they don’t.

Do you pick an outfit that is a shameless plea for attention, because this is what you’ve been your whole life. You can’t remember a day you got up for you, it’s for these strange men, the rows of skirts small enough to show off your tight ass. The lip lick from the man in accounting, Dare from TI would linger when he passes you by the dispenser. This is all you, the desperate plea in a tight dress.

Do you pick the opposite, an outfit that hides all your woman. That hides the curves, covers up the contours, tells the truth, that you can’t ever remember being kissed like you mattered. That you’ve gone 25 years without this elusive thing called love. That you’ve been searching your whole life for a place you can be vulnerable. 

Do you pick an outfit that shows how haggard and unkempt you are. That you are a place of ruin and everything you touch decays? That this isn’t just metaphors. Its Midas touch but the opposite, that you haven’t been alone from lack of trying. That men have walked in and found your insides an abandoned house, just too much effort is required and not worth the investment. That you will always be alone.