what good is a writer that does not write ?

the silence rarely gets louder.

it’s the middle of june and i’m seating in this big cafe nestled somewhere in abuja, on a street with a name too hard to pronounce, to be honest, i didn’t try to pronounce it, i didn’t look at the street nor the name… i’m too tired. i needed to write today, and amy suggested this cafe because nothing makes me write better than a little snack and iced tea. i woke up craving matcha. not entirely sure why - maybe because it reminds me of the june of last year, or was it july? the beginning of law school, when life was …. good. no, when life was different.

abuja makes me feel queasy, an odd type of queasy. everyone is scared, scared to be nice, scared to be not nice - punctuating their words with wonder. almost trying to sift out which ministers son i am or which paupers? a cadence, a disgusting candor that only if i come from something can i be treated like something, a funny inbetween. waiters scanning through every ‘R’ that rolls off my tongue, determining what country i schooled. to know how large their smile should be. such a reminder that poverty begats poverty.

if i had to describe this cafe i’d call it shabby, shabby staff, shabby flies but hopefully not shabby food. i ordered an iced strawberry tea and a muffin. i’ve seen this place too much on instagram…. i wish someone mentioned it was littered with flies and sockets that never worked. i’m not sure why the barista suggested an iced latte for me. i wonder if there’s something about me that gives off more before they meet me. i wonder if they can tell i’m a writer, or that i don’t think i’m funny enough or that i’ve had three breakdowns since this year started.

me, my muffin & my cracked ipad screen….. and my iced strawberry tea ofcourse💘

i wonder if it’s written somewhere behind my eyes how much i’ve had to endure or how much i’ve enjoyed, the thin line between innocence and the other side.

when you see me, can you see my story? do i tell a thousand stories by only speaking a few words?i haven’t written in so long my love, and i’m aware. not sorry, aware.

i sat in front of my ipad every day for the past 13 days- waiting. waiting to finally start writing…. to finally want to start writing. there were so many stories in my head, so many things ran across my mind, like usain when he discovered he could run at 13 in jamaica, but on most days i looked at my broken screen, tracing the lines along my ipad, praying it could cut me. maybe if it cut me i could focus on something entirely different. maybe i could eventually look away.

i didn’t always like literature, at least that’s how i remember it, but when my father wouldn’t let me watch television and the brother immediately older became too cool to hang with me…. i had to learn how to be like my sister, how to be strong yet graceful. smart yet kind. i cannot help but think - i cannot help but say how much of ‘us’ is created by the people we meet, the people we love.

who do we become without the people who have become?

i started writing this for a very specific reason. a reminder, to you and to me.

when i began to love literature. i learnt a lot of things like how create imagery or draw surrealism, how to use suspense to hold your readers and decorate your words with anger, but i never learnt how to write a tribute, not once. with me, literature was easy, it didn’t demand i divide or substract. it demanded i feel, and when i did, it applauded me. i could tell easily spot allegory from hyperbole, because just like my sister i had read way too many books.

the night my mothers father died i cried my eyes out and after that i read every single work on grief i could lay my hands on. every article, book, quote, short story. i studied grief and i studied it well. that’s what happens when you learn to intellectualize instead of feel, that’s what happens when you grow up with a mathematician dad. you’re taught to calculate and dissect.

it is art that teaches you how to feel.

for the past 13 days i’ve sat in front of my ipad, wishing it was a laptop. because maybe if it had a keypad i could write better. maybe if i got a different chair or if the weather felt lighter, perhaps if i saw a little night sky things would be easier. i’ve always rationalized everything. postulated everything, drawing lines creating fractions and divisions even in my art, even in my heart.

it’s hard to write for you because i haven’t written my tribute, i haven’t said the final words to my grandad. i think it’s the finality for me. it’s the idea that there can only be one tribute. one final act of love. the words have to be perfect. i have to mourn him yet celebrate him. intertwine my grief with gratefulness and melancholy.

i think the hardest part about growing up is becoming. we have to become all these things no one ever taught us, we must learn to love ourselves, learn to pay tax, learn to be healers, learn to be kind, learn to be compassionate. we must be eager to better ourselves yet be contempt with who we are.

but still, i was never taught how to write a tribute.

how do i do what i was not taught?….how do i become who i do not know?

i thought this would be longer; more figurative, better, stronger, but we can’t always dig ourselves the deepest well… on some days we must drink water from the village tap. thank you for being here my heart. before i forget, how is your day going joor? 💘