Month: December 2015

I am told that I had a mental breakdown at age 11

I don’t have a clear memory of this event but the things I remember inspire fear, joy and many other emotions I prefer to leave unexamined

I remember standing in the compound of my junior high school and not knowing why I was there

I remember missing and wishing for my mother without ever seeing her

I remember locked joints and psychiatric hospital visits with the doctors saying: “there is nothing wrong with her”

I remember the fear on my father’s face every time I repeated the same joke to him

I remember getting to my home village and not remembering the why

I remember fetish priests and white cloth sourced by my grandmother

I remember herbs, fasts and devout men of God

I remember lost memories of the time and an inconsistent mind after

I remember failing at school that year because I could not recall my lessons

Sometimes, I miss that time. My mind was unbounded and my tongue was unbridled.

Other times, I wake up in cold sweat when I remember the forgetting

I am afraid to go back to that time for that fear

What does it matter if the constant exposure to a large crowd of people makes me feel like there are bees buzzing in my head

And these same bees carry dark thoughts to me in airplanes

I can not go back to that time

I will not go back to forgetting

I was a fiery, temperamental child

The kind who spoke her mind readily when angry
So consumed my her anger that she cried with it

And her words came out in short staccato bursts

Filled with hurt, pain and impatience

With time and enough reprimands by parents and well meaning relatives

I learnt to channel this anger inwards, waiting for it to cool

And break it down to impersonal debates, which could be regarded

As intelligent discourse, because passion only inflames

Doesn’t make sense if you want to be seen as intelligent

In trying to make my words worthy of intelligence

I lost my voice, for a time at least

 

Until a boy uttered words that made me forget to hide

My passion away in a dark corner of the room

The spark I thought I had lost flamed anew and I took off the gloves

Punch after punch I threw, I did not care for the blood and the sweat

He made me so angry that I forgot that I had to remain detached for my points

To be considered intelligent

 

And just as a boy made me forget, other boys came by to remind me

That I had lost the way and their respect

I listened as they spoke, once again showing me the door to my own prison

And I replied: “no more hiding”

I am tired of holding in the so many scrapes and bruises formed by thoughtless actions

I am tired of making a leash around my own neck to fit into the box created

For me by so many others

I will no longer bury my words within my heart and douse my own fires

For your convenience

I am done!

Aww, you must miss your family

There is a pause

And in this space of time,

I wonder if anybody ever misses a tornado

Or a hurricane sweeping a well ordered life

Into tiny smithereens of chaos

Leaving one emotionally incapacitated

But nobody expects the truth

Only an answer permitting them to go on with their day

So I smile and reply: yes, I miss them.

She was the first.

Walking with head down, shoulders hunched and hands in her pockets

Eyes fixed firmly on the ground before her

Arms folded tight, in her attempt to go unnoticed

And apologize for existing

I was fourteen when we met and eighteen when we parted

You could say that four years granted me her secrets

 

They say you attract what you are

I guess, I was also apologizing for living, determined to go unnoticed

This I achieved in the years after high school

Where I built my walls so high and granted access to a select few

You might say that I began to notice the myriad walking apologies among us

So many people, sorry to have been born

Sorry for speaking, dancing, eating, breathing and for being

 

I wonder why we apologize for being

Rootlessness was her excuse and guilt was mine

Neither resulted from our actions but our birth

Birth, which we had no say in

I am learning to stop saying sorry with my every movement

No more fading into the background

Laughing a little bit lower

Dancing a little slower

I am and so I will be me