Needful Lessons.

Make your own truth out of these lessons.

1. Don't let the fear defeat you.
Lara lived in fear of everything. She was the kind to wait for the worst to happen and it eventually did. She ended up alone because she kept leaving at the smallest smell of neglect. She hurt herself way more than any other person hurt her.

2. There's a God.
"I'm just here in life. There is no God, no Satan, no nothing". Philo didn't talk about the red and white voodoo under her bed. The one she used to make Flora barren and Simi insane. She didn't talk about the sacrifices she performed by the waters. Of course she believed in divinity and a higher power.

3. Know when to let go.
Pamela got too absorbed. Maybe it was the way she loved in a very unhealthy, intense and consuming way that she refused to accept that things were no longer the same. His words were almost cold and had lost the sweetness that made her soul whole. So she chose to stay, ignore all the signs and it hurt like hell.

4. Never give everything
Georgina let Tayo feed off her for so long. Watched him take out of her, piece by piece. She let herself love enough to trust, enough to care so much to give everything. All of her heart. And now he was gone and she didn't now how to start over, she didn't know how to live without him. How to live without her life support.

5. Know your pain.
"What or Who are you really angry at? What brings that sadness I see in your eyes? Who made you so bitter? What taught you depression?" Know your pain, its the only way you can master it. Tola had always been so resentful. Years ago, she was raped at 13 by two men that left injuries she still carries with her.

6. Hope is the only salvation.
All Amara could do was pray for a miracle, for better days. It kept her alive and gave her strength to endure a day at a time. She hoped for Granpa's cancer to leave and it eventually left taking Granpa along with it, she hoped for her parents to stop fighting and Dad didn't fight for Mom when she walked out of their marriage. They all found peace.

7. Always use your words.
I believe in love, love with words. Always tell the other person how it is, what you feel, what you want. Don't leave them to assume on their own. If you're having a fight, talk it out. Its the decent thing to do if you respect and love the person and you still want them if your life. If you don't want them anymore, tell them. Don't use excuses and don't wait till you make them try so hard to only get hurt at the end. Honesty is key.

8. Respect the consequences of your actions.
"The wages of sin is death". Tinu was decaying, from inside out. Her organs were failing her. It took a while for her to get here but all the drugs and letting all those men spread her open and ransack her the way they did only because she mistook nights for lonely, only because she was needing love.


I'm leaving you with parts of the lyrics to my new favorite song;

WHERE DOES THE GOOD GO - Tegan and Sara.

"Where do you go, with your broken heart in tow?
 What do you do with the left over you?
And how do you know when to let go
...
Look me in the eye and tell me that you don't find me attractive
Look me in the heart and tell me you wont go
Look me in the eye and promise no love is like our love
Look me in the heart and unbreak broken, it wont happen
...
Where do you go when you're in love and the world knows
How do you live so happily while I'm sad and broken down"

5. AM.

Who are you in this point in time?
I have plenty of seconds to lose
Over-analyzing to build what isn't there
So let me breathe and be
All the other lives outside
Rather than drift and swim in fantasies of you one more time.

Who are you in this point in time?
That unbothered drunk snoring on his bed
Sleeping in last nights clothes
Reeking of his sadness that the drinks failed to take away

Who are you at this point in time?
The preacher with his bible ringing a bell
Walking the still dark early morning streets
Proclaiming of judgement and hell

Who are you at this point in time?
Mid forties workaholic
Late for a business meeting
Giving herself no time to admit she would die a lonely soul.

You may think you know who you are
Till you see yourself live through another person's eyes
Would you cringe even just one bit
At the sharp correct reflection of yourself in the mirror

STOP.
REWIND.

Who are you at this point in time?
The lovesick love frustrated girl
Who in her heart is always alone
Because that conscious vague unease never leaves

Who are you at this point in time?
Can you separate fact from fantasy?
Are you mine only in my mind?
How much more does want hurt than pain?

Depth over Definition.

Thirteen year old Ann Marie held John's hand now. Holding hands and lying with their backs on the green grass of her father's garden looking at the blue and white sky and discussing the week's events was their Sunday ritual. Ann Marie sighed dreamily. She loved John. Every possible way you could love another being. She thought of how young she was and how confusing it all was.

She thought of how they got so close. She had always known him as the guy next door till the day she was at his place for his sister's birthday and she teased him about the huge poster of an exotic white girl on his room wall till they both laughed about it. That day ended up with him kissing her forehead and both of her cheeks.

She had spent all her life running from every good thing before it left her. Her sad eyes held the tears of the stories that tell why she is so broken inside. She had never let anyone hold her hand before now. And now there was John and she was stuck.

She couldn't leave him, not when he looked at her the way he did. The way he did that made her feel like melting chocolate. So she was stuck, blushing like those ignorant shallow girls like she didn't know any better. She wanted to be all woman for him, to look pretty. She wanted him to see her more than the plain girl next door. She loved him enough to allow what they had exist without being defined. She loved him enough not to fight for what she wanted so bad. Defining things always brought along its bag of problems. She wanted him to be forever. They had it all planned out. He was to be her best friend and her daughter's god father. They were going to grow old together and laugh at how they were once young and naive.

She loved him too much to fear how much it would break her when he was gone. But she was going to be okay being afraid if only he would be here the whole time being afraid with her. She remembered his word's this morning "Am always here. Trust me. Always."

She loved enough to trust.

She didn't know how to tell him or make him understand that she loved him too much that it hurt. That every time he held her hand, she saw their beautiful future. That he brightened up her life like the stars twinkle in the dark skies at night. That she couldn't stop thinking about him. That he had become a part of her, growing in the most overwhelming way. But then she wanted their's to be a story no one told so it didn't have to end badly.

She looked at him now lying beside her and smiled and held his hand a bit tighter.

5 May 2014.

There is the period.

You feel invincible. Like you're soaring on blue and white clouds out of the reach of everything beneath.

In your love struck eyes you see that one person who keeps you floating. You're smiling dreamily trying to absorb the moment that's overwhelming you.

Somehow you know it’s not right to feel this good. This alive. But you let yourself feel all of it anyway. 

That person. That has become your everything. Your very being. That you see years from now, by your side, still holding your hand.

All of a sudden life doesn't seem so horrid and anything seems possible.  

And there is the period

When the person leaves and you seem to be falling. Not back to earth but straight to hell. Where pain is heightened so you can feel your own heart break. 

When you can't think, can't breathe. You are suffocating. Because your own life is leaving you.

You like the darkness because you cannot do anything without remembering that person. You simply can't bear living because living is pain.

16.4.2014.

"I want you to touch me. I want to moan your name. I want your tongue on my neck, whispering sex language, I want to feel you breath on my skin."
I stopped typing when I saw his message.
"I want to explore your body with my fingers and my tongue. I want to find those spots that would make your insides quaver. I want to suck your nipples till you forget to breathe."
I picked up my phone, and dialed his number from my memory.
"You should be here, I want you here. I need you to hold me"
We were torturing ourselves, we were just blocks away from each other and it hurt like hell.
All our conversations ended with the need for a deeper form of intimacy.
......................................................................................................................................................

"I want your hands on my arse. I want my tongue in your mouth. I want to feel your heartbeat against mine. I want to feel your hardness in-between my legs."
His message came in.
"I want to claim you for mine. I want to get you dripping wet with my fingers. I want to pound into you till forever."
I wanted joint bodies and heated romance. He wasn't even a few blocks away anymore, he was at the other end of the world and I was here. Some how we managed to talk about everything still, from my boring work hours to his sex escapades.
........................................................................................................................................................

Memory is like rain. Several emotions hitting you so hard, you want to run and look for cover. I was in love with him, I mean, there were several places I couldn't go without remembering his hands holding mine, or his laughter, or the taste of his mouth or how his skin shone like gold under the sun. My nights were incomplete without wanting him. I couldn't listen to the songs I loved without that familiar liquid ache under my skin wanting him to hold me like he did all the time when we played the same songs.

1, April, 2014.

Did I tell you how jittery I got as you took my hand while we walked through the corridor to our hotel room? Did I tell you my breathing stopped when you pushed me against the wall right before we got to the door? How my knees buckled as I felt your hardness on my ass, how I thought of all of that hardness inside me and I closed my eyes? Do you have any idea how confused and uneasy I was when we got into the room? How I had to remind myself repeatedly that we were not love, we were too damaged for love, this was sex, you said this was the better way. We both cared for each other and I was giving myself to you, you were going to be my first and I was deeply in love with you. How I saw my mother's sad eyes and my dad's disappointed face. I thought of Jesus looking down at me now, did He even understand? Did he also see my sadness, my many nights of lonely, my longing for senseless passionate nights and naive love? I smiled at you now. I needed this. You pulled me to you, kissing me fervently till my lower lips was sore from all that emotion. You were different from any other person I had been with, I felt the parts of my body your lips kissed ache delicately after you left them. How awkward and embarrassed I was at myself because I didn't know what to do, how to please you, how inexperienced I was. How I shivered with longing as your lips worked on my right boob, how I arched my back and held onto your afro. I was completely unprepared when your lips worked their way down in between my thighs, my body convulsed in pleasure and I moaned out your name like a plea. At that moment I realize I wasn't just pleading for a release but my heart was begging you to love me. I didn't want to scare you away, you always told me how you left all the other girls that wanted more. You said you liked me because I understood, that I knew better to recognize love as unnecessary weakness that would only complicate things.
You ask if I'm ready, I look at you with disturbed and uncertain eyes, and nod. You tell me to open up to you and I scramble to obey. Then I see it, we had been making out for several minutes but then I've just begun to apprehend how it looked like a weapon, an instrument of pain. I let you anyway, through the blinding pain, I closed my eyes tightly to wad of tears and bit my lips hard so I don't cry out. Was this what intimacy meant? I looked at you now, your face was wound up, your were so engrossed in riding me, at the frenzy to see the agonizing pain I was going through. I loved you even now, even with my cramped lower body. For many lifeless minutes I let that wave of countless drops of emotions drown me. You had pulled yourself from me and rolled to the other side of the bed. I looked at you and you looked away, things were never going to be the same.

24th March 2014.

The shrink was unenthusiastic about your next meeting.

You remember your first, she smiled alot when she discovered you were only 21, her warm forced smile met your cold unmoving face. You thought psychiatrists had a general grave look, maybe she kept the serious looks for her older clients or maybe it was your story. She asked alot of direct questions you didn't want to answer.

Now she looked at her watch too frequently, allowing the awkward silence engulf the both of you.

You lay on her leather couch staring blankly at the white ceiling as you thought of how you allowed all those men wound your human with their horns. How you felt yourself disappear as each man spread you open and ransacked you.  When you mistook your nights for lonely because your bed had so much space despite your many pillows, nights when you saw your own life, clear enough to recognize it as the driest desert of lonely, nights when the silence allowed your own mind to judge you. You  looked for a reason to forget so you let strangers hold you a little too tight.

Your father did not understand how his daughter's name was on the lips of all of his friends, how they had touched her most intimate places. How you watched your father crumble in front of you in unbelieving tears, how his grief told you you didn't love yourself.