I Want To Tell You…

I want to tell you of how I’m hanging by an almost-invisible string of happiness;

How I walk on eggshells around myself, afraid that my thin smile might just break into uncontrollably bawling.

I want to tell you how I feel when I look at all my friends laughing like they have no worries in the world;

How I feel when I see her, most especially, having the most perfect life anyone could ever ask for.

I want to tell you how un-silly I feel comparing myself with others.

 

I want to tell you how I feel as I approach my street;

How I feel knowing that it might be another night to be taken advantage of;

How I pray and groan to God to keep him sober one more night;

While I rehearse to be numb through all the thrusting and strangling.

I want to tell you how my vision blurs out

And I levitate my soul to my quiet and happy place;

A place without tears or sorrow or molestations

A place where everyone respects and genuinely loves everyone.

I want to tell you how I scoff at this imaginary place.

I am a fool.

There is nowhere to run from him.

 

I want to tell you how I felt when I first found out;

That vows made through happy tears had been broken by a cold dead conscience.

I want to tell you how stupid I was; in retrospect,

When I fought and screamed at him for cheating.

I want to tell you about the night I conceded and accepted;

That what was once my perfect pudding had now become sour spoilt rotten akamu

I want to tell you how worthless I felt when I said, ‘Okay. Just make sure you don’t bring any kraw-kraw disease into this house’;

And how I felt when he laughed and said; ‘Now we’re talking’.

I want to describe the image I see when I look in the mirror;

Of a broken and unfixable woman;

Of a terrible life ahead;

And of an irreparable self-worth.

 

I want to tell you about my stupidity;

How I joined a group of deviant and irrational young men that night;

And destroyed a family forever.

I want to tell you all the things they didn’t tell me before I joined;

…all the ‘caveat’ they owed me.

Like how killing another human being is easy compared to killing your conscience;

Like how I would roll over my bed every night sweating furiously as I remember the face of the little boy as the bullet went through his chest;

Or like how I would randomly hear his mother’s scream in the dead of the night.

I want to tell you how that the events of that night feel fuzzy in my head but yet I remember everything that happened;

I want to tell you how the index finger of my right hand still twitches; just like when I shot that boy;

I want to tell you how sorry I am;

I want to tell you how scared I am;

I want to tell you how stupid I am;

But I also want to tell you how rich I’ve become.

 

I want to tell you about her;

About how she makes me laugh simply by twitching up her nose and oinking;

I want to tell you how I feel;

That no one else has made me feel this way;

But I also want to tell you how wrong it is;

What my mother told me;

She said, ‘If I ever see you doing what you two were doing in that room ever again, you would understand why daughters should dread their mothers’

I want to tell you how I sit up late at night wondering how this can be wrong;

I want to show you all the scriptures that say that it is wrong;

And I want to tell you that I believe them.

But I also want to tell you that I don’t understand how I feel.

I want to tell you how I really want to change;

But how I don’t want to change.

I want to tell you that I’m confused;

And that it’s killing me.

 

I want to tell you how I wake up by 4am every morning;

I am getting used to the smell of my own saliva.

I want to tell you about the last time I slept on a normal bed;

But I really cannot remember.

I want to tell you how I stand close to my female passengers as they board the bus on my first trip of the day;

It’s the closest to smelling something better than my saliva.

I want to tell you how sore my throat is at the end of the day;

I want to tell you how I become an accountant at night;

Explaining why N50 is missing from the day’s fare proceeds;

I want to tell you how my heart races every time we approach a bus stop;

I don’t want to argue with these NURTW people; but my boss says if we don’t, we would be the most miserable of all bus drivers/conductors;

I want to tell you how I never look at the ground when I hang from the bus

I want to tell you what I think about when I get a bird’s eye view of the road;

And why I smile when the breeze blasts in my face;

I want to tell you that I particularly hate folding the Naira

But that would be too silly for me to say.

 

I want to tell you about my academics;

But I’m afraid I’m not smart enough to;

I want to tell you how I feel in class;

Lost and so confused;

I want to tell you how I can literally feel something blocking my brain;

And how I really want to visit the doctor and ask him to conduct a scan.

I want to tell you how I envy my siblings every time they say or do smart things.

I want to tell you how I daydream every time about being the next Ben Carson;

But I can’t even keep up reading anything at all for as short as 5 minutes.

I want to tell you that something tells me I’m not a dullard;

But that same something also told me to say that rubbish answer in class.

I would really like to tell you that I’m not a dullard.

 

I want to tell you a lot of things…

But I can’t…

Because they are better experienced…

And best not experienced.