My favorite little demons!

It’s not what you think….. or is it ?

The three kids that lived with me were MAD.

There simply was no other explanation. It had to be madness, it had to be some evil compulsion and you know the worst part? I had to call these three musketeers my….. my…….. see I can’t even say it. I can’t even phantom it. I had to call them my siblings!

Let’s give them namess, let’s call them…..purple, blue and orange.

Purple was pretty, growing up I believed she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my life, the most intelligent too. Purple would receive every award at the end of the year. She was so graceful, I would’ve said kind but then I would be lying. Some days I look at purple and smile, I remember the first time purple fixed her nails, she was four years older than me but it never felt like it. She had a high pitched laugh and always called my full name ‘Tobechukwu’ ensuring to pronounce every syllable only to land on the last ‘koo’ to emphasize either her anger, or happiness or her disappointment, sometimes all 3. I hated purple most times, to be honest it was rare, but they were days I hated her, her guts.. the way she’d tell me to kneel down when I offended her or when she wouldn’t fight for me. Purple didn’t understand social cues, but when I was 18 and she got an iPhone 11 from my cousin she gave me instead, and when I asked she simply said “you need it more, you want to be an influencer and my phone is working alright’.

she was lying, her phone was bad.

Blue fought me a lot growing up, he was three times my size and two times my height. He taught me how to swing a blow, not to defend myself from bullies, to defend myself from him. So till now I swing a wicked right hook, he was mostly quiet when we were growing up, blue was brilliant, extremely brilliant, Even though sometimes he didn’t realize it. Every Sunday after church my mother will go to the big market with little stalls, the market that always smelled peppery, either peppery or the ‘afternoon heat’ which was really just a good mix of body odor and dead dreams. But blue stood in the market taking me pictures on his new phone, in my new blue jeans. So I’d post, so I’d finally be one of the cool kids he never got to be, sometimes I wonder what I’d be without blue. Blue would never share his food with me, but blue would die ten times so I would be born once.

Orange was directly older than me, or so my parents said, but it didn’t feel like it while we were growing up, orange was shy, he was quiet and was skinny, thin. He always hated the word skinny, so it’s no brainer that he’s now so muscular. Orange was always the most talented, the most beautiful too. He had the most beautiful eyes any boy could ever have. But in adolescence he changed. He became a teen and sometimes that’s the worst punishment to a younger brother. Suddenly he became too cool, maybe too cool for me, but you see orange was different, he never called me fat. He had soft curly hair like blue but he always said he liked mine, he said he wished he had my dark skin even when I hated it. Orange said I was the funniest boy when I had no friends, he would make me talk about all my ‘FRIENDS’ from school knowing fully well I barely knew this people. Orange made all his friends mine, I don’t know how he managed to convince them but he did. Orange hated wearing matching outfits with me but would always make sure I knew I was ‘next of kin’ in every document he filled.

Three musketeers and one cutie patootie.

I know some days it feels worse - the loneliness, the quiet, the anxiety.

I’m learning it’s such a huge disrespect to not believe in myself, to not be bold enough to love or live like I’m deserving. It’s an insult to the people who believed in me, the ones bent, broke and crumbled so I can become. I don’t stand alone I stand with the colors from my childhood, we all stand with colors, the people who made us who we are. Such disrespect to them to not feel good enough, to not feel… loved.

we’re not our worst moments, we’re not unloved, we’re not broken, we’re not angry. We use so many adjectives to describe ourselves, so many adjectives forgetting adjectives cannot exist without nouns. You are the noun. You are enough. You are YOU. On the nights you don’t feel good enough remember the orange who would not let you hate yourself, the blue that would rather you live, remember purple….remember purple would give up the world so you be happy, do not cross oceans searching for a love that is on your own back, do not forget the mother who nurtured you for 9 months, if you are alive, you’re already loved and that’s the irony, why do you search for what you already are ?

To purple, blue and orange, if you’re reading this I love you with all my heart.

but before I forget, my beautiful TOBABY; how is your day going joor? Please do me a Favour, talk to me, comment or simply write back, I can’t stop thinking about you.

So random, but if you’re a Tobaby and you school in Babcock, I think I’d be in your school on Sunday. I can’t wait to see you my love 💘