TRACING BACK

I miss being in love, you know that callous feeling of yes, I love and I am in love, I am not just in love but I very much like this human. Every other waking moment I want to be with her, talk to her, simply revel in the beauty that defines her and what this is. Thoughts ran through my mind while I looked back nostalgic, reminiscing of days gone by when my pain was not determined by my shame, when one of my friends told me, “Collins the world is not kind to your kind, you express yourself with all the innocence and a touch of naivety which will not be appreciated to the unrefined.” My response was, “What am I to do if this is me, rose-tinted glasses viewing the world through my poetry, getting lost in fallacies that are just me..” And that ladies and gents was the beginning of my character development.

Looking back at my sprightly Eighteen-year-old self and in my own borrowed words then.. “The sky is my canvas the ocean my ink and the stars my words.” I wanted to paint the world in my youthful exuberance not knowing what the fates had in store for me. In the immortal words of my old lady,”maisha bado haija kupiga boxing” (calm yourself, you have not yet lived). I would tell Ma’ I am built differently as if I was insulated from the heartbreaks and whatnot. So as I lay in my bed taking stock of my life I reminisced of that past when I was not tainted when I was idealistic, and I must admit an egotistical barely out of my teen’s young man. Dropping in and out of memories, retracing steps as to where, just where did I.... Sigh.

And I was in love, what then I thought was pure unadulterated kind of love, your boy was tongue-tied just as in the words of Jill Scott in her song ‘Love rain’ and I paraphrase. “She was better than love, I could hear her rhythms in my thoughts. At night we would watch the stars and she would give me everyone.” Guys I was in love, I was in a daze and every song was about us, the birds would sing and I would write lines as if a humble bard was playing telling tales of a great romance. In my wallowing wishing, I could go back just go back and be my 18-year-old self, it dawned on me when I began to lose myself, where I allowed the world to mold me into what I was not meant to be. The beginning before the end lost in a world that got in the way of what I was feeling, I allowed it. 

As they say, it was that fateful day when the rain had beaten me down to my bones, to my bare minimums, I had a scared stare, hamstrung with questions to what did I do wrong for her to leave me, I did not do anything wrong, in the relationship checklist ticking. Did I cheat? No, was I always available yes, was I respectful yes. Did I show her my love well yes all that poetry especially the “100 reasons why...” was more than I could express in simple terms. But still, she left. Subtly, in a sadistic narcissistic self, I allowed myself to simply blame her instead of healing, I let the other have power, and even when I knew better still used this as a crutch for my worst behaviors. Unapologetic on a rampage. In the immortal words of the Joker (Batman: The Killing Joke) “All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man to lunacy. That is how far away the world is from where I am, one bad day” Indeed, that one bad day set me off on this path.