And everything and nothing is wrong at the same time.
Come back you took away everything
But stay where you are because it truly was the best thing
And truly the best and worst of us are just opposite sides of the same blade
I’m just never sure who is on duty this week
So forgive me in advance.
I’m usually like this but I am made of the best intentions.
Today I am laughing and can’t sit down
But later I will cry in the bus
In the toilet
In class.
I hope He is okay. I hope I will only ever have to mourn our death but not over his pain.
I did it once and those tears wake me up at night so I am bonded to you forever by your tears.
I an hyperventilating again.
I want to scream.
I want to be held. So badly.
Going around admitting how I’m a work in progress.
But it’s one of those days when it’s more of work and less in progress.
So when you see that broken sign
don’t run away.
Bear with me
I’ve been wearing it in so many different colours lately.
Your girlfriend’s been oscillating from one end of the shelf to another for the past fifteen
trying to decide what her poison for the night is with a lump in her throat
because money and the kind of day she had
is always a bad idea.
She has that smile
that vivid, ear to ear, dimple showing smile
that smile that is one muscle away from being the opposite
but you certainly wont know this because when she laughs it vibrates
so loudly
you couldn’t possibly believe that a pretty little heart like that
has room for anything else
I mean, she most definitely almost believed that idea herself
until its two thousand calories later
and she still wants to kiss you
with the same intensity with which she wants to feel the blood on her fist
from punching a hole through somebody’s windscreen
and her limbs are weak because it feels like every cell in her body
is gathered at her throat trying to keep it from letting a scream.
What babe won’t tell you tomorrow over your Wednesday Breakfast Date
is how this thing hits her in the most paralysing waves in the middle of the day
and when you ask her what is wrong she surprises herself
with how this thing teaches her
that her mind can come up with a thousand different phrases to say the same thing
but her mouth seems to dry up when she dares speak
because neither of you can possibly handle the words that are begging to come out.
So for now she waits for an uber home, chocolate wasted at 9.45 pm
texting you telling you that she can’t stop thinking about you
when what she wants to really say
is Please, Help Me.
Getting your name off my tongue was easy
But my heart still can’t beat properly because I keep finding you in crevices of my skin I never felt you creep into.
//Kemunto
I.
If they would have told us it would have ended in a war tailored for us to lose,
We would never have signed up for it in the first place.
II.
The only thing we remember
Is that the earth splits open
And we sink to the deepest pits of ourselves
We grieve.
Resurrect on occasion
only to die again.
Our bodies ache
Our limbs struggle to bear our weight
And we learn to bathe daily in our tears
Our world ends.
Again. And Again. And Again.
III.
We come to the other side.
But we are still bleeding,
Garments soiled, and our bruises just starting to form scabs.
We learn how to sleep soundly most nights.
But we still wake up at 1 am sweating,
Haunted by the images of our ghosts.
Our limbs learn to walk again-
Trembling at first. But our footsteps grow steady.
Until we get to certain places and our knees shake
And it starts to feel like we are sinking into the same dark pits
we fought, tooth and nail to climb out of.
IV.
Sometimes,
We want to dare this thing again.
On good days, when we believe that the sun is shining just for us
We gather ourselves, with the blood on our chests now dried,
silencing the voices telling us that this thing is not for us and
offer whatever is left of our hearts at the altar of vulnerability.
Praying, fervently, to the only God who was with us in the darkest corners of Hades
Begging him that whoever comes this time, will be gentle enough to realize that after the war,
Wounded soldiers never come back the same.
//Kemunto.
Maybe one of the reasons I am unable to write about it is because putting in on paper makes it real.
And it’s ghost is already too much to deal with- I can’t risk breathing life into it because I can’t allow myself to feel the pain of dying another time.
Ya Allah
If it will keep my heart soft,
Break my heart everyday- Warsan Shire
It’s like breaking.
Except you cant stop.
And what seems like peace is numbness before you break even more
And wonder if it is even possible to break any further.
It may feel like a good kind of pain, if you let it. The kind of pain you are meant to like. And maybe you do because it feels like excitement and it feels brand new and forbidden and when you numb everything else, what you are left with is the kind of exhilaration that feels like running up a hill and instead of pausing at the top, you take a leap off a stiff cliff.
After you may find yourself feeling like a winner. But only if he doesn’t run. At least for the next couple of weeks. And you feel like magic if what follows each time are those words that make your skin feel like its made of honey and he convinces you that you did good and you believe him.
And when its over you keep going home grinning with a story to tell and you spend a couple of hours trying to relive each moment convinced that you are happy. I mean, why shouldn’t you be?
You may walk a little different.
And you start to think a lot different.
Your thoughts somehow refine themselves and you open a Pandora’s box with him that you aren’t able to close but you may feel a little grown now. Because you find yourself talking different; having exchanges about grown folks things.
Perhaps it may start to get liberating when you find yourself with too much to share. So you realize you’re better off practicing generosity because you may find yourself having something new to offer and more often than not you surprisingly, never lack a willing buyer. And you may even wonder where they have been all this time.
Soon enough your life aligns to give you a whole new set of worries. And the things that didn’t matter before kind of do. So you may choose to take precaution or throw caution to the wind because you’re addicted to feeling golden and you think you trust him. Unfortunately.
But sometimes you start to look in the mirror and you just don’t look the same. I mean you do.
But you kind of don’t because you realise that something is gone.
And maybe one day you kind of start to miss it.
And you find yourself trapped in the same kind of circles because something is missing. And you try to break away but you sort of can’t because the one excuse you had to leave, was sort of taken because you offered it.
Then one moment, when you’ve struggled for the five hundredth time to climb out of the same pits you keep slipping into helplessly, the blinding smoke dissipates and you realise that what you felt that first time was actually the bad kind of pain.
*cover image from Google Images*
Messed Up Too 