Don't mock a pain you have not endured

Many times we hate ourselves for being alone. We blame ourselves for the many times we opened ourselves up to people who didn't understand enough to stay. Sometimes we give up and give in to defeat and silence, strengthening our pain and our shame. We live inside the corners of ourselves for the fear of being discovered for what we are. Broken. Hurt. Damaged.

A lesson I learnt; "Don't mock a pain you have not endured". Halima gave in midnight showers. Something about the way the water reassured her that she was not alone even when she still had to face her lonely cold bed. She'd curl up and cry her eyes out for the people she trusted enough to see the real her. The people she wanted to stay. The ones who didn't. She gave into songs with lyrics that cut her deeper than knives. Songs that made her remember who she was. Lonely. She belonged too deeply to herself to belong to anyone now.

Nobody could want to be with her like she did. Or understand her like she did. Yet they wondered why she didn't blossom like the other flowers, why she didn't blush foolishly like the other girls. Like Mariam who blushed and laughed in her high pitched voice to everyman's joke. Who made them feel like the men they were. They flocked around her like bees. She never knew a lonely bed. Halima believed in love enough to try to be honest. She told each man of her burden. Of how her father crept in her room every night after she turned thirteen. How her mother was to lost to want to notice. How she bore scars that wouldn't heal. No one wanted a damaged girl. Some laughed waving her tale off. All of them ran.

Tonight she's fading away to memories. She's fading away to her own darkness. Somehow she wanted the comfort her own death would give her. She slit her wrists and  laughed at her own pain in the same mocking way they all did till the red filled her bath tub

"Do you love her?"

“Do you love her?” the woman asked eying me suspiciously.

I thought of Georgina and why I got so attracted to her in the first place.

“She’s like a sister to me, really smart with a good heart” I told Mrs Adeniyi, looking her right in her eyes.

Georgina was smart above everything, smart and good. She was one of the few I found a certain peace in.

Georgina was also big boobs, nice ass, and a good kisser too. Georgina was always wet. Always wet when my finger or my tongue found her down there. Georgina got me turned on above what I thought was possible. Abandoning our friends, sneaking to dark corners, just because we couldn’t wait to get out hands on each other.

I loved Georgina high, she was always horny when high. I watched her count the Christmas lights dreamily through heavy eyes. Right then I wanted to claim her for myself. Devour her mouth with mine, kiss her breasts and suck at her nipples, part her legs and lick her wetness off, stroking her clit just to get her wetter. Hear her moan the way she does and hold on to me desperately not to fall in the gutter.

Georgina and I liked to pass the day with each other. She made me see the positive parts of life that gave me strength enough to hope. Sometimes I worried I felt something more for her, but I never dared to ask myself the question till the woman blurted it out demanding an answer..

“Women don’t drink, smoke or kiss each other on the mouth”, she was saying. I tried hard to act like I was paying attention. A memory of Georgina’s lips on mine flashed in my mind. Soft, inviting, giving. “You will not keep a man with this attitude. Women are reserved, domestic, religious…” She eying me again, “Can you cook, clean, take care of your husband?”. I hated to cook. I was one of the few that found the issue of desperately impressing your husband to keep him from cheating repulsive. “My pussy is good enough to keep any man”, I’d say. Whoever my husband would be he should learn to make sacrifices too.

  The woman was still talking. Maybe I loved Georgina, maybe I just cared so much about her. This wasn’t the first time I loved a girl. I remembered what it felt like. The confusion, all that hurt and heartbreak. I didn’t want to go back to that. Georgina was different. This was different.

A dream can be the highest point of a life.

 

A dream can be the highest point of a life. He always talked about how my mind was the most beautiful place he had ever seen. He talked about the world he saw in my eyes, the one he wanted to be a part of. He said that again as his lips gave soft kisses to the length of my neck, hands on my ass drawing my close to feel his hardness. He smiled at me and my whole world would fall apart. I was like melting chocolate in his hands. ‘I will always love you” he promised as his lips claimed mine with a vengeful purpose. That was when I knew it was a dream. Cyril would never promise me love. I wish I was able to realize our eight months relationship was a dream too and woken up just in time to save my heart. I woke up to a new pain. Reminiscing and bleeding afresh...

“Remember there's a part of you that no pain can ever break”, Cassandra said softly holding me close. I knew deep down inside she was scared I may resolve to suicide. I was never the happy kind. I remember how I always struggled to find happy moments to keep me warm and now Cyril took all that away with him, leaving me struggling for the willpower to live. The darkness was beginning to show on me. I grew leaner. My voice began to disappear. My eyes hid from the world, retreating into the depths of my head’s dreaming. My bones became more visible. My blouse began to slip from my shoulders. It was a mirror reflecting what was inside. Somehow I wanted him to stick around so he could see what he did, behold what I had become. I wish before he took off running, he stayed to watch my heart break. Watch me bleed for him, for his lies, for the promises he didn’t keep. They would all tell you they wouldn’t hurt you, but then it just makes it more exciting for them when they let your heart fall and smash into the littlest pieces.

“Your dark days are not forever”

Thelma’s whole head was sick, her whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot to the head, there was no soundness in it. It was full of bruises, sores and bleeding wounds. Most of them unseen. She had been hurt a bit too much for her health. Her emptiness was like that of a desolate land. She sings herself to sleep each night, songs of heart break, the rhythmless song of the names of her lovers. The ones she had given her heart to. The ones that had broken it. She had known strangers, maybe a little too many in the name of looking for love. The strength of the poor is in their hunger. We are known to thirst most for the things that we are deprived of. So she tried to ignore the many strange hands that knew her body. She tried to make these people stay and grow to love her. Maybe her desperation made her ugly, maybe it made them run. But at the end of it she was cold and alone. Soon she stopped believing. It all become dreams and fairy tales till she met Bola. Love is love, I’ve come to believe. Wherever you find it, as long as it is true, hold onto it and never let it go. Bola had been a lesbian since high school. On the other hand, Thelma had known only men. But when friendship blossoms in something we cannot explain, the unexpected happens. From comforting heart-to-hearts to heated make out sessions, Thelma found happiness and knew true companionship. The dark shadows that clouded her countenance have risen and she smiles these days, smiles as bright as the sun.

Ojo had been searching for a job for forever. Maybe a bit longer than that. His face had lines that told stories of his journey of hardship, of poverty, of problems. Mama Ijesha never stopped being one of his prominent problems. His landlady had extreme ways of embarrassing those who couldn’t pay rents before the set deadlines. She had called him all sorts of names, thrown him out, and more. His fellow tenants were cold to him, always looking at him with scorn like he was the cause of their poverty as well. They would murmur behind him, some of the women hissed in contempt and snapped their fingers at his back. His mother was sick in the village, nearing her death more each day as he couldn’t afford to save her. A poor man cannot find sleep in the midst of his many problems. He had gone from church to church looking for prosperity and financial healing. He only came out poorer than before. He couldn’t even afford a wife. Laide, the girl he intended to get married to, could not bear enough to wait for him. She insulted him to his face and became another man’s wife. Poverty ate deep, deep into his small sack of garri, deep into his worn out clothes, deep into the holes in his shoes. He had given up.  People had to be poor for others to be called rich. He was beginning to embrace his fate. Till Mrs Anjola got interested in him and what he could offer. She paved a way out of his misery for pleasurable satisfaction. He got a job through keeping her warm on cold nights and working himself so hard inbetween her legs. He got new clothes and shoes, and an apartment spitting on Mama Ijesha in the face. He was able to pay the hospital bills for the treatment of his sick mother and live a comfortable life. Good life is showing on him, you could hardly see those hard lines on his now chubby face.

3 October, 2013.

I remember the days when Father would come home singing his depression a bit too loudly in his drunk state.  He would sing his poverty and bitterness in songs only him and his beer understood. Papa’s problem was refusing to accept the truth of his poverty. His wealthy days as a trader still haunted him.  He would throw parties his jobless pockets could not afford. He wore his pride like a knightly armor. An armor that couldn’t protect him from the truth that cut deeper than knives. He was his own downfall. I always pitied Mother on such nights. He made her suffer for his temporal madness. The silence of the night was naked enough for one to hear her hushed pleas to him in their bedroom. She was a strong Nigerian woman, the perfect wife, submissive and never giving her own opinion. We were silent too. We knew better than to advice father against the things he could not afford. I remember the whispers behind our backs when my sister and I went with Mother to the market. Gossips of Father’s not-so-secret lover. The world is open to all, everything has ears, and nothing can be hidden. Mother didn’t even flinch. She was devoted as a saint. I knew she had heard because I heard her prayers that night to the Virgin Mother to have her husband back from the claws of the whores that held him captive.

I remember how I grew to hate men. I bought myself a dildo and never looked back. I got obsessed with being successful and replaced a man’s love with late nights at work. I was an independent woman, strong like a brick. I worked long hours to forget my drunk father. I worked long hours to forget my abused mother. I worked long hours to forget the nights my dad’s brother crept into my room. His sweaty fat body on my fragile one, his breath reeking of kola nut and beer close to my face. I remember how I became a woman way too fast. My innocence and virtue ripped right from my tender hands. I remember crying silent prayers for him to be struck dead by lightening even as he roughly satisfied his dirty lustful desires on me. How I wondered whether his wife slept too deeply to realize her husband had left her bed. How I couldn’t tell anyhow. Fear held my mouth shut. I remembered my silent tears full of hate and spite. Somehow I was afraid of myself and what I had become. I craved to be held in the arms of a man on cold nights. I craved for love and things my heart did not believe existed. Those nights, those dreadful memories would replay and I would again bleed afresh. I knew my burden, I accepted my truth. My scars were not ones that time could heal.

30 September, 2013.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. - Jeremiah 29:11


And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. Romans 8:28

Bimpe had been waiting for two hours now since church closed. She needed to see Pastor Matthews. With the seriousness of her situation , she was ready to do a whole lot more than wait two hours. She was tired of whatever misfortune that followed her. She needed big men that rode big cars. Her problem was that she attracted the wrong kind. She believed the solution to her problem was to go to God. She had earlier kept vigils, crying to God in the darkness of the night to bring her some happiness in form of a young man in a big car. But somehow God hadn't heard. So she came to the church. Pastor Matthews however found her problem hilarious. "Pastor, look at me", she said desperately trying to make him understand. "I deserve better than okada riders and mechanics. I need my breakthrough. This is not the plan God has for me." Pastor Matthews was at loss of what to say. He said some comforting words and prayed with her. That night she dreamt of the life she wanted. Exotic hotels, big men boyfriends who rode range rovers. However she woke up to the reality of her misery. She found Alhaji Aminu weeks later and abandoned the church for hotel bars. She has got the blessings of the Lord now, just hugging old pot bellied men in different beds. She has got two jeeps now and apartments in the best part of town. She has got everything now. Everything but what she needs to fill that hole that keeps growing within.

25 September 2013.

I havent written because I'm too afraid to write
I'm afraid of words
I'm afraid to give them expression and meaning.
I'm afraid of the thoughts in my head.
But today I'm determined to overcome that.
Hope you enjoy today's post.

Its almost October. Simi hated the rain. She had not left the house and it was raining already. Umbrellas were useless. Frail things that couldnt even withstand the wind. It was always a tug of war to hold the umbrella right against the wind. With an umbrella, one would get wet still anyway. It rained almost everyday these days. Heavy droplets of water hitting you everywhere that hurts most. They felt like hail stones falling from the sky to her. Getting wet could be so annoying when it meant ruining your weave, getting your clothes and your shoes soaked. There were mornings when she would cry under the rain out of frustration. She screamed at the skies in her head for the fear of being considered to be mad. Not that she cared. No one cared about her to notice even if she was mad. She hated the rain the same way she hated work. Emptiness and depression made her whole. Today she's on her desk meditating over Cyril's pictures on instagram dreaming of her day of release. She was tired of crossing the road, the long walks and the bus rides. She hated the hard life. She needed her good days to come to her. Days were her fantasies would become more than what they are. She looked at Cyril's picture again. His middle fingers were thrust upwards in it. She bit her lips thinking of what those fingers could do if they were thrust up, up into her. However it was his eyes that appealed to her most. The evil glint in them like they knew she was looking. Those eyes suggested a whole lot of dirty things and she was game to each and everyone of them. She liked the way he lived. He lived in the pictures with no care for the world. She loves that. Maybe one day he would reply the Facebook message she sent a year ago, and maybe, just maybe, this fantasy would be more than what it is.