When i say i love you.

hey my Tobaby.

it’s 3am. 3:21 to be exact, i’m standing outside the cream colored house beside mine, when i look at it, it’s significantly smaller. i’ve always thought my neighbors had a bigger house, i’ve always just imagined their compound as bigger and their fences as higher, the cream house with a grey roof …but it’s 3am and i think i just got my heart broken and for the first time i can see my house has always been bigger, I think it was my heart that was smaller.

i’m wearing that fenty pyjamas i told you about the last time, i’ve paired them with these faded pants i got from my cousin, i wonder if he knows it’s still with me, i wonder if he knows how much i love them. i’m wearing a tank top, well what you’d call a singlet, i wear singlets often because they remind me of my dad, that and because 3 years ago i stumbled on the word hyperhydrosis and self diagnosed myself, it was an easier task to explain why i was always sweating, easier than obesity.

i don’t think i’m well sometimes, only sometimes and writing this letter is so hard because i think i’ve now realized I’m writing to real people, writing to you my love but i think in this moment I’ve also realized you can judge me. i’m teary eyed also and i hate that. i hate that it always feels like im ranting to you, pouring out my anger or sadness, i promise this isn’t who i am, i wish you’d meet me on my good days, i promise i’m happy. i’m doing that thing where i pace, not sure if it’s to keep myself from thinking or to help myself continue writing, I’ve never really been sure. i wonder if this is a panic attack, i wonder if this is what anxiety looks like.

i can’t remember the first time i was called “sensitive” but my first memory was me crying in my room because my older brother didn’t choose me to play football for his team, to be fair? i was shitty, but TO BE FAIR? i wanted him to choose me,  i’ve always wanted to be chosen ……to be chosen by anybody, to be chosen by everybody. i don’t know how to continue this without seeming a little … weird,

maybe i’m just in my head? maybe i’m wrong. it’s 3am and i’m standing on the road side, i’m pacing in pyjamas, mismatched and angrily typing at my phone, the neighbors kids definitely think i’m going crazy but it doesn’t matter because i’ve just realized our house has always been bigger and that makes me feel better to be fair my house is the tiniest apartment amongst all 5 in my building, maybe I shouldn’t be so proud. you know if you saw me too you’d think i was loosing it, 3:37, mismatched pyjamas and angrily typing on the road, fuck i didn’t comb my hair either, you will think I’m mad.

sensitive

emotional

expressive

soft

i think my sickness has many names but if you met me on a good day, i promise i’d tell you it’s a strength, not today though, please i can’t be that strong, please don’t ask me to be..

i didn’t have a lot of toys growing up, my dad thought they were a distraction to his kids whom he believed were exceptionally smart, and my mom? i think she was chill with the decisions he made, but i remember this one toy, this one christmas, this one memory. i had to be 6 or 7; old enough to tell my brothers ‘NO’ when they asked me for chocolate i left in the fridge but young enough to be forgiven when i wet the bed (by mistake ofcourse) it was december 25th and we were in our big beige house nestled in a small town in delta state, we only came here for easter and christmas so why did it have to look better than us? but that’s not the point of the story, at least not this story. i was laying in the room they fondly called mummy & tobe’s room, weird because my mother never slept there, neither did i, it was way too scary but that night i did, and when i woke up it was to my sister, she had forced her cute little brother to wake up and open his christmas gift, it was the first christmas where i saw gifts under the christmas tree, the first christmas where i knew my life could be better, my christmas of hope, i ran through the wooden stair case, each stair promising more hope than the last, i remember turning left, i remember looking into the parlor and seeing one last gift under the tree. it was mine, i finally had something that belonged to me. you see being the last child can be rather hard, i’ve always felt like i owned nothing, like everything i got was a neatly used hand me down, no brainer when i started to feel like a hand me down myself, worn, used & looking for the next owner, the next lover, but again i digress.

i remember seeing my two brothers tearing into their gifts, unwrapping was too dignifying a word to use, oh boy. they tore into it like they had no tomorrow, i remember being slow with mine, so affectionate when i think about it, i’ve always been soft, always been sensitive and maybe that’s the problem. Maybe I’m a soft boy in a hard world, maybe after all the hardness I still chose to be soft, maybe toughness is overrated, maybe the best way to navigate life is how best you know how to, not listening to critics or advisers. Just truly living.

it was a transformer robot! i didn’t watch tv enough to know bakugan but optimus prime? boy was i shocked. he was big and blue and silver and red and I remember just thinking my wow I finally have a toy, my toy.  i loved my optimus prime.

i was called sensitive before i knew the meaning of the word so maybe that’s why it hurts so much, maybe that’s why sometimes it feels like trauma, i’ve also learnt that i ‘do too much’ or that ‘i’m dramatic’ when I’m simply being myself. the older i’ve grown the less i’ve cared. but tonight it hurts, sensitive as a curse word has always been crazy because how is someone angry that i care? tonight i learnt you cannot change how people will describe you, but what you can change is how you react?

So to the person that called me overly sensitive, you’re nothing but a mad joke with that your ugly dreadlocks.. kmt

thank you for staying so long, for reading, for being with me in every phase my tobaby.

We’re about to hit 10,000 subscribers and I truly don’t know how to feel, I love you, and how is your day going jooor my tobaby.