As I sat on my bed, head buried deep in my pillow, I realized I hated myself the most all these years. I loved myself or so I thought but I never loved myself enough to show myself.
Always been a lover girl, buried in romance novels hidden within textbooks, glancing at intervals for teachers. Giggling like a child, hiding at night to tell the other girls of my first kiss and love letters. It meant a lot. To be loved, swept off my feet, settled for. Until I was not.
Always been overcompensating because love meant to include all their bullshit. It’s like a marriage vow, for better, for worse. Except I got comfortable at worse with barely any better.
As I stood there, staring at his friend, I waited. Waited for him to say “he tried calling you but your line had been switched off”. I was there waiting to announce my stolen phone story with a sprinkle of “Tell him not to worry, I’m fine”. It never came rather I found myself announcing the loss of my phone hoping his friend will tell him. That is when I should’ve known.
“Do not let a man show you he doesn’t want you more than once’ they say. Not me. I stayed even after the fifth time. I stayed till we dated and he broke my heart. I stayed till I started waking up in the middle of the night wondering ‘was I possessed?’.
I tell my aunties how I never want to get married because I have no endurance in me. “Men act like trash and your generation just ensures it. I could never!”. But I do. Every time I am in a relationship. I endure and become what I hate. The strong black woman.
Now, I try my best to disappear. I do not want to be seen. I just want to exist. No more novels in between textbooks because I can read whatever I want. No more giggling at the cool boys. Now, I open my phone and the first thing I say on the group chat is “Men are scum”. Now, I stay rooted to the ground and desire to never endure. Now, I fear romance.
Deep down, I will forever be a lover girl but now, I am incapable of receiving or giving love because ‘For better, For worse’ is a painful thing to do. Now, I wonder what kind of juju made me settle for a man who dated my friend while leading me on, one who had a new girlfriend a day into an argument, one who said “I needed to tone it down a bit”, one who was always busy, one who was too cowardly to accept he ever even loved me.
I am a stand up guy. I am tough and rough around the edges but when I love, I become a soft cushion for my lover. I lower my shoulders so you can see past them, I sit where I am told and giggle because “it is cute to have a man in control”, I tell all my friends everything about you because “good is worth sharing”
But I have never had a stand up guy. I have met attempts but in the end, they are disappointments. Even Jesus has been a tough love kinda guy on days I need pampering. They say “Men will always be Men’. Well, I hope someday I can say ‘Men are scum’ and not mean it as deeply as I always do.
Not one man wronged me. Maybe 4? 5? It’s not gender thing, it’s a person thing and I always get the bad ones.
Love isn’t there to make us happy. I believe it exists to show us how much we can endure. -Hermann Hesseh
