As the funny friend, I’m expected to listen to your problems and lighten your mood a little. I don’t mind. That’s what friends are for. I don’t blame you for not asking if I’m okay. After all, who could crack so many jokes, laugh the loudest, and still not be okay? And even if you did ask, I’d probably smile, tell you I’m fine, and make another joke before you had the chance to worry.

Being funny makes me the closest friend yet still not the best friend cause who needs a clown for a best friend.

Deep down, I wish someone would ask if I’m okay. Even though I’ve already imagined my answer, I still want the chance to say it. Maybe, just maybe, I’d finally be brave enough to admit that I’m not.

Maybe I’d tell you that making people laugh is how I survive the weight I carry. Maybe I’d tell you that laughing is the only way I’m allowed to cry without anyone questioning me. Maybe I’d tell you that while everyone remembers the jokes I make, no one notices the thoughts I keep to myself. Maybe I’d tell you that thinking of something funny is the only thing that keeps me from thinking about everything else. Or maybe I’d tell you that being funny is easier than being vulnerable. Because vulnerability invites questions, while humor earns applause.

Maybe one day someone will ask if I’m okay. Maybe I’ll laugh. Maybe I’ll say I’m fine. Maybe after saying all of that, I’d finally know how light a heart can feel when the mouth shares what it’s been carrying.

Until then, I’ll keep laughing until tears roll down my cheeks. Maybe that’s the saddest joke I’ll ever tell. Because at least that way, no one has to know which tears came from the jokes.

My soul is at war.

The only time my eyes get to rest

My thoughts become darker.

The only time my heart beats slow

My hands are writing.

The only time my soul stays within

My body is frightened.

The only time I am truly quiet

Is when the noise has already won.

The only time I feel alive

Is when something inside me is dying.

And when the morning finally comes,

I wear a smile

Like none of it ever happened.

People say greed is part of human nature, but I don’t think greed is the right word for what I feel. I’m grateful. I really am. I appreciate every small achievement I’ve had. I’m just never satisfied. The more I accomplish, the more I want. Every goal I reach immediately turns into another mountain I have to climb.

Then again, I’ve always known I wasn’t exactly normal. I’ve accepted the parts of me that made me different for years. I even liked some of them because they made me who I am. But this isn’t one of those parts. This is the version of myself I wish didn’t exist the part that is afraid.

Today, I want to admit that I’m scared. I know I’m a man. Society doesn’t really leave much room for men to say things like that. Somewhere along the way, we learned that fear is weakness, that confidence should come naturally, and that uncertainty is something we’re supposed to hide. But I’m scared. Does that make me less of a man?

Lately, I’ve been thinking about graduating this year, and every time I do, this quiet fear settles inside me. Maybe I’m scared of reality. Maybe I’m scared of becoming another unemployed Nigerian graduate, holding a degree while wondering what comes next. People say it’s okay to be scared. I tell myself that too. The problem is, I don’t actually believe it.

I’ve spent so much time pretending to be brave that I’ve become good at looking confident. Most people would probably describe me as confident, but confidence and bravery aren’t the same thing. Confidence is how I appear. Bravery is what I’m still searching for.

The truth is, I don’t want to be scared anymore. I want someone my heart completely trusts to look me in the eyes and tell me that everything is going to be okay. Maybe that’s too much to ask. Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe every person, no matter how strong they seem, secretly hopes someone will say those words to them.

And if admitting all of this makes me seem like a weak man, then maybe, for today at least, I’m willing to be one.

Those two words sound impossible together, but somehow they explain a feeling that is difficult to put into words.

There is a difference between breathing and truly living. There is a difference between your heart beating and feeling like you are actually present in your own life.

Sometimes, your body continues moving while something inside you becomes silent. You wake up, you go through your day, you talk to people, you smile when you are supposed to smile, and from the outside everything looks normal.

You are alive.

But inside, you feel empty.

Alive, still breathing.

People can see that you are here. They can see you walking, talking, and existing. But they cannot see the battles happening inside your mind. They cannot see the exhaustion that comes from constantly carrying things you never say out loud.

Alive in love, in loss, in pain.

Because sometimes the things that remind you that you can feel are the same things that hurt you the most.

Love can make you feel alive, but it can also leave wounds that stay with you long after the person is gone. Loss shows you how much something meant to you, but it can also leave a space inside you that feels impossible to fill. Pain proves that you are still capable of feeling, but sometimes feeling becomes the thing you want to escape from.

Alive, but rather grave.

Not because you are physically gone, but because it feels like something inside you has already been buried.

Maybe it is your happiness. Maybe it is the person you used to be. Maybe it is the hope that things will eventually become easier.

Sometimes you do not want answers. You do not want another explanation for why you are hurting. You do not want another lesson from suffering.

You just want peace.

You just want everything to become quiet.

Alive, but depressed.

Alive, but suffocating.

That is the strange part about this feeling. You are breathing, but it feels like you cannot breathe. You are surrounded by people, but you still feel alone. You are alive, but you feel like you are slowly disappearing.

It is like becoming a stranger to yourself. Like watching your own life happen while feeling disconnected from it.

A person can laugh and still be hurting. A person can be surrounded by people and still feel alone. A person can be alive and still feel like a walking corpse.

Alive??

Yes.

I’m alive.

But dead inside.

Maybe that is the hardest thing to explain. Sometimes the body survives while the person inside struggles to feel alive.

And sometimes the first step is simply admitting the truth.

I am here. I am breathing. I am alive.

But there are parts of me that feel like they are already gone.

because journeys end,

and travelers grow tired.

I want our life to be like a book

I never get tired of reading.

A book I underline.

A book I return to.

A book where every chapter feels different,

yet somehow still feels like home.

I want to relive it, even while I’m still inside it.

I’m not asking for much.

Just a life filled with you

because you would be my joy.

I’m not searching for a unique love story.

Not a popular one either.

I find peace in the basic things.

In quiet mornings.

In shared glances.

In buying you flowers  yes, roses are fine.

We don’t have to be different from the world

to mean everything to each other.

My desire to travel the world looking for joy

would slowly disappear

if you were right beside me.

Because joy would no longer be a destination.

It would be you.

Every moment with you would make me happy

and somehow hurt at the same time.

Because I would always be aware

that time is moving.

And every second spent

is one second less of forever.

I wouldn’t mind if one hour felt like a whole month with you.

Oh, how I wish we could stop time.

Live without aging.

Without endings.

Maybe then

I wouldn’t have to imagine a world without you in it.

For the one I will forever love

I don’t care how dark your past is.

I just want to make your present and future so bright

we’d need sunglasses just to look at it.

For the one I will forever love

I am good at keeping malice.

I know how to stay silent.

But with you, I wouldn’t last.

I wouldn’t be at peace if we didn’t talk.

Because love without communication

slowly dies in silence.

For the one I will forever love

I am not perfect.

I have a past I’m ashamed of.

I am still healing from things

I don’t always talk about.

My heart has been broken so many times

that sometimes I don’t even know

what I want

and what I need.

But I do know this

I need you.

And maybe that is the purest thing I can offer

not perfection,

not certainty,

but effort.

And a heart that is choosing you,

even while it is still learning how to be whole

This shows grief takes a lot of time to heal since I’m still in the first stage, but it doesn’t work like that. It’s not a game where I have to finish this stage to join the next. I can be in all stages of grief without moving on from any. This is where danger lies. It’s hard to deal with one stage, now imagine all stages of grief at once. The only way to describe it as it is, I would say it’s the easiest way to end your life.

I’d like to define grief as pain, but that’s not enough for me. Grief hurts. We are not talking about getting injured and you can see blood, then you are hurting. No, this is worse. You can’t see the blood, and you don’t know where it hurts, and your brain automatically thinks everywhere hurts. At that moment, your dry island becomes automatically wet without permission. It will bring out tears that are hot, and they will roll down your cheeks. These are not normal tears that come from lacrimal glands. These tears come straight from your heart, because the more they drop, the more the heart tightens, during this moment all emotions are heightened most people think you only feel sad or become vulnerable, that’s not what happens, all emotions try to become one and you try to process them but you can’t and end up mixing up anger with sadness and you try to hit someone or break something just to feel better but you don’t, what will most likely happen is you get tired of breaking or hitting stuff and stop, while some would try to hurt themselves to feel a little better by being able to identify where it hurts not everywhere we all process grief differently we do what our heart tells us to do without consulting the brain, all this happens when you decide to accept grief if you don’t then you will just go through shock and denial like me, all these

and we still haven’t even passed the first stage of grief but I’ll stop here cause I hate reminiscing.

I don’t want something complicated. I don’t want a love that changes colors depending on the day, depending on mood, depending on circumstances. I don’t want different shades. I want one. Just one kind of love that stays. One that doesn’t confuse me. One that doesn’t make me question if it’s still there. Because I’ve seen what it feels like when love starts changing… and I don’t want that. If I love you, I want it to feel the same way every day. Not less. Not more. Just real.

White doesn’t try too hard. It doesn’t need to prove anything. It just exists, and somehow that’s enough. That’s how I want to love. I want something that feels light, not heavy. Something that doesn’t drain me or make me overthink every little thing. I want to feel at ease, not like I’m trying to hold something that might slip away. I want a love where I feel seen without asking. Where I don’t have to guess how you feel. Where I don’t have to read between lines that shouldn’t even exist. Just something clear.

Because that’s what white is. Clear. Open. Honest. If love were a color, I wouldn’t want mine to be loud. I wouldn’t want it to be something people look at and admire from far away. I’d want it to be something I live in. Something that feels like light. Something that feels like peace. Something that feels like I’ve finally found where I belong. If love were a color, mine would be white. And I wouldn’t want it any other way.

If love were a color what would yours be?

It’s been 19 years and I have always been the safe place, but I’ve never had one. Not because life protected me from anything, but because I never allowed myself to have one. Over time, I don’t even know if I’m a deep person or just someone who learned how to stay quiet. I’ve had friends for more than 15 years and they don’t really know me. They know the version of me that listens, that understands, that never breaks, but anything personal anything that sounds like pain I delete it before it ever reaches them.

I don’t want anyone to see me sad, and I don’t want to be pitied. Every time I think about opening up, it feels like I’m asking for too much, like I’m placing weight on people who didn’t come to carry me. So I learned how to carry myself. I push everything down, close it off, and leave it there. I don’t even share how I feel with my family. It is that serious.

There’s something about me that makes people comfortable enough to tell me things they’ve never told anyone their insecurities, their secrets, the parts of themselves they hide. And I sit there and hold it like it’s nothing, like it doesn’t add to the things I’m already carrying. Maybe it’s because I don’t judge, or maybe it’s because I know what it feels like to have nowhere to put your pain. The only person I’m even likely to say anything to is my sister, and even then, it’s usually not about me.

I genuinely like being there for people, I really do, but sometimes it gets exhausting. Because I already have things I don’t talk about, and now I think about theirs too. It stays in my head longer than it should. I’ve tried to open up before, but the words feel too heavy, like my mouth can’t carry them, so I just swallow them and act like they were never there.

Sometimes I feel like if I ever say everything out loud, it will be used against me one day, and I won’t recover from that. So I keep it all in. Maybe I’ve convinced myself this is a gift being able to hold so much and still look fine but sometimes it just feels like loneliness that learned how to stay quiet. And I don’t know how long I can keep holding everything together.

No one knows me the way I know myself. Not really. People know pieces of me the parts that are easy to show. The parts that don’t make anyone uncomfortable.

They know the smiling version, The calm version,

The version that replies to messages and laughs at the right moments.

But they don’t know the real weight inside me.

They don’t know the thoughts I swallow before they reach my mouth. The things I feel but never say because I don’t know how they would look at me after hearing them.

There are parts of me I keep buried so deep that sometimes even I get scared of them. The hidden webs I hide, The darkness I carry quietly, The fragile version of me that almost no one has ever seen, And maybe no one ever will.

Because people don’t ask about the things that might disturb them. They see the version of you that works for them and they stop there.

They will write about the happy me, The friendly one, The one that always seemed okay. But the truth is, sometimes I feel like I’m disappearing inside myself, Like I’m slowly becoming someone that only exists in silence.

Do they think I’m perfect?

I don’t know, Maybe they don’t even think about it that deeply, Maybe they just don’t want to ask.

Because who wants to be disturbed by a friend?

And that’s what I am. Just a friend, Nothing else.

And I want to keep it that way.

Because expecting more from people is one of the quickest ways to destroy yourself. Expectations create quiet hopes, and quiet hopes create quiet heartbreaks.

So I killed that part of me, I stopped expecting, I stopped hoping, I stopped imagining that someone might look at me and actually see everything.

Now I exist as something simpler. A mere friend.

Someone who listens. Someone who laughs. Someone who shows up.

But never someone who asks for too much. Maybe that’s the safest way to exist, Maybe it’s also the loneliest. Because the truth is, there are parts of me that will probably die without ever being understood, Thoughts no one will hear, Feelings no one will hold.

Pieces of me that only exist in the quiet space between my mind and these words, That’s why I write, Because if I don’t write about myself, the real version of me will disappear.

People will remember the easy version.

But the real one the fragile, complicated, broken one will vanish like he never existed.

And I refuse to let that happen.

They throw it around carelessly, the same way people toss coins into a fountain without thinking about what it actually means.

Someone feels attraction, Someone feels desire.

Someone feels the temporary high of wanting another person. And suddenly they call it love.

But it isn’t love.

It’s lust wearing love’s name like a disguise.

And the worst part is that some of us don’t realize the difference until we’re already bleeding from it.

Because some people love lightly.

They move through feelings quickly, touching hearts without realizing how fragile they are.

But others love differently.

Some of us love acutely, We don’t feel things halfway, We care deeply, We attach meaning to moments, words, and small gestures that might have meant nothing to the other person.

And when love like that meets something shallow, the result is almost inevitable.

It ends in tears, Not quiet tears either the kind that feel like something inside you has cracked open, The kind of pain that leaves you searching for a way to release it.

For some people, that release is anger, For others, it’s silence, For me, it becomes words.

Every tear eventually turns into a sentence.

Every hurt becomes something written down somewhere, because writing feels like the only way to stop the pain from suffocating me.

But even words don’t always fix it.

Sometimes you sit with the broken feeling long after the writing ends, You tell yourself you’ll be okay, You tell yourself you’ll be fine, But inside, you still feel shattered.

Not dramatically.

Just quietly broken in places you can’t easily repair.

And in those moments, strange thoughts appear.

The kind you wouldn’t normally admit out loud.

You start wondering about the end of things.

The end of love.

The end of pain.

The end of the world itself, Not because you want destruction.

But because when something inside you feels completely ruined, you start wondering what it would look like if everything else simply… stopped too.

It’s a strange curiosity.

But heartbreak has always had a way of making people ask strange questions.

Especially the ones who loved too deeply for their own good.

I am so interested in sad things. I don’t read love stories with happy endings. I hate romantic movies. I love heartbreak poems.

The best love stories always end in tears.

That’s why I believe real love has to be complicated. If it’s easy, I’m not really in love. When it’s difficult when it hurts a little, when it shakes me that’s what I call love.

I get jealous when I’m in love. Jealousy makes everything complicated. I want you to be mine, and I want us to feel like we belong to each other in a way the world can’t interfere with. I know we don’t own people but love, to me, feels like choosing each other so intensely it almost looks like ownership.

I am complicated. I don’t want easy. I want hard.

I love when you get jealous of me not in a controlling way, but in the way that says, “The thought of losing you scares me.” I want to feel like I matter that much. Like I am not replaceable.

I want to laugh with you and feel alive every time I’m next to you. And when we’re quiet, I don’t want awkward silence. I want the kind of silence that feels loud. The kind filled with tension and comfort at the same time. The kind where we don’t need to speak because everything is already understood.

Don’t talk just to fill the space. Let’s sit there.

Let’s observe each other. Let me show you how much I love silence.

Sometimes I try to convince myself I’m not toxic. But why do I only fall in love with chaos? When it’s peaceful, I feel less alive. When you don’t complain about my female friends, I start to question you. Because if you don’t feel threatened, are you even in love? Or do you just enjoy the idea of me? Let’s not call that love.

Ugh. To know the actual meaning of love.

Plato said love is “the desire for the perpetual possession of the good.”

Friedrich Nietzsche said, “There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”

Now that that is my type of love. What is love without madness? It’s like tasting cake without sugar. So you’ll have to decide.

Do you want love? Or do you want my kind of love the kind that makes you go mad in the name of it?

Maybe I was wrong before. I said I wanted mine in love. I take it back. I want mine madly in love.

And I’m still trying to figure out if that’s romantic… or reckless.

I repeat the word like it will lose meaning if I say it enough times. It doesn’t, People talk about trauma like it’s something you “went through.”

As if it’s past tense. As if it stays where it happened. Mine doesn’t.

It lives in my deceitful thoughts the ones where I pretend I’m fine. The ones where I convince myself it wasn’t that bad. The ones where I try to rewrite the night so it hurts less. But trauma can’t be cheated.

It travels in the mind, It sits still in the thoughts.

It makes itself relevant in everything I do. It shows up in how I flinch. In how I hesitate. In how I overthink kindness. In how I don’t fully trust softness.

If trauma were a dress, I wore mine to sleep.

That’s the cruel part.

The place I call peace, my bed, my silence, my dark room reminds me of a night I despise. The soft cotton that is supposed to mean comfort still feels drenched in tears. Sometimes I change the sheets and still feel it. Like memory seeps deeper than fabric.

It was raining that night.

I remember the rain more than I remember my own breathing. The sound against the glass. The way the world kept moving like nothing irreversible was happening.

My body feels sold.

That’s the only way I can describe it. Like ownership shifted without permission. Like I was still inside it but no longer in control of it. And still, morning came, Morning always comes.

But it brought no light. Only the shadow of hands I can’t forget. Only the echo of rain against the glass.

I hold my breath sometimes and I don’t even know why. Maybe I’m afraid the air will remember too. Afraid that healing means admitting how much it changed me. Afraid that if I fully sit with it, I will break in a way that wringing won’t be able to fix. Because that’s another thing no one tells you Trauma doesn’t just hurt you. It rearranges you. It changes how you live in your body. It makes mirrors uncomfortable. It makes touch complicated. It makes sleep suspicious.

And the worst part?

I don’t know how to live in a body that was once taken from me. I’m learning. But some days it feels like I’m renting myself. Like I’m still trying to sign ownership papers to my own skin.

People say healing is beautiful.

They don’t talk about how humiliating it feels sometimes.How you blame yourself for not “moving on.” How you question whether you’re dramatic. How you minimize your own pain because someone else “had it worse.”

But trauma doesn’t measure pain by comparison.

It just stays.

And I am tired of pretending it doesn’t.

At least that’s what I told myself.

I understood the theory of it. I could speak about it like a philosopher. I could write about it like a poet. I could even advise people about it like someone experienced.

But feeling it? That’s different.

I didn’t know I loved you until I thought I was about to lose you. And that says something ugly about me.

Because what kind of person only recognizes love when it’s threatened?

I never felt that kind of fear before. Not the fear of danger. Not the fear of failure. I’m talking about the fear of replacement, The fear that someone else could take my place, The fear that I am not irreplaceable.

That’s when my heart started racing. Not when you were kind to me. Not when you laughed with me. Not when you were there.

But when you weren’t guaranteed.

I thought loving you was just a fantasy. A harmless imagination. Something dramatic I created in my head because I like intense emotions.

Until it became real, And when it became real, it didn’t feel beautiful, It felt threatening.

I’ve been hurt. Not because you stabbed me in the back. Not because you lied. But because you acted like someone who has options.

And you do.

That’s what broke me.

I only realized I was in love when I realized you could choose someone else.

When I saw you laughing with another person and my stomach tightened.

When I imagined you giving someone else what I secretly wanted.

And that’s when the question started haunting me:

Do I love you? Or am I just jealous? Do I want you because I care about you? Or do I want you because I can’t stand the idea of losing? Is this love or possession? Is this affection or ego?

My feelings grow stronger when I see you with someone else. That should disturb me. Why does the threat of competition make my heart louder?

Why does scarcity make you more valuable to me? If you were fully mine, would I even feel this intensity? That’s the part I don’t like admitting.

Maybe I didn’t love you when you were available.

Maybe I loved you when you became uncertain.

Maybe what I’m feeling isn’t pure, Maybe it’s pride, Maybe it’s insecurity, Maybe it’s the fear that you’ll find someone better and confirm what I already suspect that I am not enough.

And instead of confronting that insecurity, I label it “love.” Because “love” sounds noble, Jealousy sounds small, Possessiveness sounds toxic.

But love?

Love sounds poetic, So I tell myself I love you.

But if I’m honest brutally honest I discovered my feelings the moment I felt replaceable, And that doesn’t feel romantic, It feels exposed.

It feels like I am staring at parts of myself I don’t want to see.

Still…

The fear was real, The ache was real, The panic was real.

And if love is the thing that makes you vulnerable, insecure, exposed, and terrified of loss, Then maybe this is love Or maybe it’s just my ego screaming, I don’t know. And that uncertainty might be the most honest thing about this entire story.

It starts with friendship.

It starts with comfort. With inside jokes. With long conversations that don’t feel forced. With someone who already knows your worst habits and stays anyway.

And then one day, without permission, it changes.

You don’t plan it, You don’t announce it, You just wake up and realize your heart beats differently around them.

And that’s when it becomes dangerous.

Because now you’re not just protecting your heart you’re protecting two ships, the friendship.

And whatever this other thing is trying to become.

You try to act normal. You try to act brave. You laugh the same. You text the same. You sit next to them like your chest isn’t tight.

But inside? You’re terrified of sinking.

Terrified that if you say it out loud, everything will collapse. That the friendship will drown before the love even learns how to swim.

So you stay quiet.

You convince yourself maybe it’s one-sided.

Then you convince yourself maybe it isn’t.

You replay moments. The eye contact. The slight pauses. The tone shifts. The “what ifs.”

You can’t help but wonder maybe you felt the same. And that thought becomes both comfort and torture.

Still thinking you felt the same.

A thought I might die with.

Because what if we both felt it…and we were just too scared?

Will I be brave enough before I die?

Will you?

Or are we going to let fear win?

Are we too scared to sail on the love ship because we’re too busy protecting the friendship boat?

The thing about this kind of love is that it doesn’t end properly.

There’s no breakup, No confession, No closure.

It just hangs there. Like a thread that was never cut, Unending. Unfinished.

My heart still beats fast when it sights you.

And I hate that I can’t control it. It feels almost wrong, Like a cheater sighting its prey.

Like I’m betraying something that was supposed to be pure.

I write all this, But I can’t say it out loud.

Because saying it out loud makes it real, And real things can be lost.

Do you feel the same?

I ask again, In my head Never to your face.

I’m drowning in thoughts while being afraid of sinking.

Maybe I can swim in this ocean.

Maybe this love wouldn’t destroy us.

But the fear of losing both ships won’t let me try.

So I stay here, Floating between what is and what could have been.

And that is why the worst type of love starts with friendship.

He doesn’t love loudly, He observes.

And that is my favorite type of love.

We mostly write about our mothers. Or maybe I mostly see articles about mothers and not fathers. Maybe because men have been labeled evil so easily. But for me, my father stands out.

He doesn’t hug me every morning or text “I love you.”

But he has practiced the law of sacrifice too many times for me to doubt him.

He doesn’t use words to show affection.

And honestly, who believes “I love you” without actions?

If you love me, act like it, He never says he would die for me, But I know he would.

I’m still trying to describe the kind of man I call father. I’ve lived 19 years with him and he has never said no to me, Not because I don’t ask for things.

I grew up with many siblings, and I was the most notorious of them all, He never once thought of hitting me because I cried too much.

Instead, he would call me into his room so I could cry next to him, He would calm me down.

We are talking about a man who bought me a Nokia phone when I was six years old because I cried that all my siblings had one and I didn’t.

I didn’t grow up with an average Nigerian dad who inserts fear into his children, All my father ever wanted was to sit with us and have conversations, He wanted our company so badly that he didn’t even mind silence.

I also didn’t grow up with academic pressure.

He paid so much in school fees but cared very little about the results, He never compared me to anyone to make me feel like I had to do more.

My little has always been enough.

I only started hating failure because I didn’t know if it broke him secretly.

To me, he filled every blank space I had of a father, I wouldn’t trade him for another.

I have the perfect father.

But not the best husband.

And that is not my story to tell.

The quiet kind. The kind you carry in crowded rooms. The kind that makes you wonder, at random times, if there’s actually someone out there built in a way that fits you.

I used to ask myself that question more than I’d admit.

Is there someone out there for me?

Or am I just romanticizing something that doesn’t exist?

Because love looks easy when it belongs to other people, It looks effortless when it’s not yours.

And then I met you, And suddenly my heart didn’t feel like it was wandering anymore.

It felt found.

Our eyes met and didn’t rush to look away, and in that small, almost invisible moment, something shifted. I don’t know how to explain it without sounding dramatic, but it felt like recognition. Like my soul leaned forward before I did.

I used to think “soulmate” was a reckless word. Too big. Too dangerous. But what do you call it when someone feels like an answer to a question you’ve been quietly asking your whole life?

You looked at me and I saw something rare. Not just beauty. Beauty is everywhere. But this was different. This was the kind of rare that doesn’t try. Like an orchid growing somewhere unexpected, not demanding attention but impossible to ignore.

You didn’t just walk into my life, You felt like you arrived.

Even your name feels like poetry. The kind that writes itself. But I still want to write it with my own hands. I want to give it space on paper. I want to say it slowly, like it means something permanent.

Every word from you feels intentional. Like it lands exactly where it’s supposed to. Like it knows how to soften me.

And maybe I’m moving too fast in my head. Maybe I’m already imagining something bigger than what this is. But when you’ve spent so much time wondering if someone out there could ever see you properly, and then someone finally does, it’s hard not to feel overwhelmed.

Sometimes I wish we were swans, Not because it sounds poetic. But because they choose once and stay. No second guessing. No disappearing. No wondering if the feeling is one-sided.

Just certainty.

But we’re human. And humans hesitate. We overthink. We get scared of how good something feels.

So here I am, doing the only thing I know how to do when emotions get louder than logic, I write.

I try to press feelings into sentences so they don’t spill everywhere. I try to understand why being around you makes the world feel less heavy. Why your presence feels like an answer.

I don’t know if forever belongs to us.

I don’t know if this is the beginning of something lasting or just a beautiful moment passing through.

But I know this:

Before you, I was wondering if anyone out there was meant for me, And now, when I look at you, I don’t feel like I’m asking that question anymore.

Right now, you are the verse I never want to stop writing,

And for the first time, that feels mutual.

Got ready

My bestfriend looked at me and said “you look the prettiest I’ve ever seen you”

As if she knew, my heart skipped a beat

My mom waved us goodbye with the last smile I saw on her face,

I danced for the last time in my life with the most important person in my life

Had my last drink and said goodbye,

even though she didn’t want me to go home alone

I got home drunk but all I could see was his face

All I could feel was him touching me

Didn’t think twice about it

THE DAY I DIED.

It was already 5pm

My mom knew I would be up by 3pm but thought I was hangover,

It was said that cats sense sickness but I wasn’t sick

She made sure to stay with me till my last breath I’d do the same for her,

She cried and cried i could hear her but no one else did

Finally my mom opened the door

I immediately regret my actions

She couldn’t scream her mouth stayed opened

Until after some seconds she screamed help

He entered my room seeing his face looking at my lifeless body,

I wanted to do it again

He acted surprised, but deep down I know he wishes to see my lifeless body naked once again,

The time was 8pm tears weren’t flowing just pain in her heart,

Until she noticed my letters

My cat was quiet trying to sniff my scent one last time before it fades away

My bestfriend showed up the messiest I’ve ever seen her

my mom handed her letter she left running as tears were rolling down her cheeks

It’s been a month my mom decided to read her letter as she opened she cried all over again my heart broke as I wanted just one last hug from her

As she read it

      “Hey pretty woman stop crying” she smiled with the paper almost drenched in tears,

     “He rapes me every night when you’re not at home your husband” she immediately fell down “I’ve failed as a mother” she kept on repeating it without thinking she couldn’t get up.

Whoever reads to this part and wants me to post the second part should comment how they felt about this, thank you.

That sounds stupid when I say it out loud. Everyone has thoughts. That’s what makes us human. But mine don’t feel like mine.

They don’t sit quietly. They don’t wait to be invited. They don’t knock. They just enter.

And once they’re there, they don’t leave.

People talk about nightmares like they only exist in sleep. They don’t understand that some nightmares happen while you’re fully awake. Some of them sit behind your eyes while you’re smiling at people.

Thoughts can be like that.

They overpower everything. Logic. Peace. Even faith sometimes.

It’s like my mind doesn’t ask me for permission before spiraling. It just runs. And I have to chase it, trying to catch something that already feels out of control.

They follow you in the dark.

And darkness is supposed to be where shadows live. But thoughts? They don’t need light to exist. They don’t need anything. They create their own space.

You can’t close the door on them.

You can’t mute them.

And even when you finally fall asleep the only place that’s supposed to be quiet they don’t disappear, They just change form, They become dreams.

Sometimes I wonder what it feels like to be thoughtless. To sit in a moment without overanalyzing it. To experience something without dissecting it afterward. To not replay conversations. To not imagine worst case scenarios before anything even happens.

How does that feel? Peaceful, I imagine,

Light.

I don’t even want an empty mind forever. I just want control. I want to decide which thoughts stay and which ones leave. I want to silence the ones that don’t serve me. The ones that whisper fear. The ones that invent problems that don’t exist yet.

I want to be bigger than my own mind.

Because right now, sometimes it feels like my thoughts own me.

And I’m tired of negotiating with something that lives inside my own head.

I don’t want to erase myself.

I just want to control the noise.

I want to be thoughtless for a moment.

Just long enough to remember what quiet feels like.

She was beautiful in a way that made me feel illegal.

Not ugly Not unworthy Just misplaced. Like a beast that wandered into a cathedral and suddenly became aware of its claws.

She slept peacefully at night, I stared at ceilings like they owed me answers.

She smiled at the world as if it had never disappointed her, I looked at the world like it had already taken something from me.

And still I would choose her again.

That’s the embarrassing part.

Loving her was not soft. It was not gentle. It was not the kind of love poets romanticize with sunsets and metaphors about oceans behaving themselves. It was lava. It burned. It scarred. It left marks that even time looks at and says, “That one? That one stays.”

And I would walk across it again.

People think heartbreak makes you wiser. It doesn’t. It makes you aware. There’s a difference. I knew it wouldn’t last. I knew we were a mistake with good lighting. I knew history doesn’t repeat itself it humiliates you in new ways.

But I wanted it anyway.

She was the kind of dream that makes you afraid to sleep because waking up feels like falling from a building. I counted my heartbeat once seventy-two beats in a minute and every single one felt like it was spelling her name. My body wanted rest. My pride wanted distance. My heart? My heart refused both.

It’s strange how you can lose someone without ever really having them. I didn’t drown in her eyes. That would’ve been poetic. I drowned in her voice. In the way my name sounded different when she said it. In conversations that meant nothing and everything at the same time.

I mistook delusion for destiny.

I mistook longing for love.

I mistook temporary for eternal.

And still I would repeat it.

She was a star, Not the kind you wish upon. The kind you know you’ll never reach but you stare at anyway until your neck hurts. The kind that makes you forget the darkness around it.

Loving her felt like fighting a war I knew I could almost win. Almost. That’s what ruins you the “almost.” Close enough to taste it. Close enough to believe it. Never close enough to keep it.

There are loves that save you, and there are loves that expose you.

She exposed me.

She showed me that I could crave something that didn’t belong to me. That I could want permanence from something built on fragile ground. That I could be both the beast and the believer at the same time. If you ask me whether I regret it, I won’t lie to you.

No.

Because some people aren’t meant to stay. They’re meant to rearrange you, To prove that your heart can survive what your ego cannot, To teach you that you are capable of walking on fire and calling it warmth.

And if she ever came back?

I wouldn’t hesitate.

That’s the tragedy.

That’s the love.

Why must we always imagine the worst of a person?

Do you know how hard it is to admit to being raped? Do you know the courage it takes to speak online about something you never wanted to remember? Because every time you do, your body feels assaulted all over again. I really hope even your worst enemy never gets raped.

Why can’t we think that since she lost consciousness, maybe she exaggerated a little bit, or maybe she genuinely can’t remember exactly what happened? Why must our first thought be negative  that she lied just because her story wasn’t adding up?

And when did a hypocritical, homophobic person like VDM start advocating about rape? A person who shares his nakedness for praise wouldn’t understand how deep a rape case is. For the victim, rape is worse than trespassing. Rape is a feeling you can’t even describe. Do you realize how it feels to be helpless unable to run, held down with force, played with, assaulted? No, you don’t understand. You might try to understand, but you can never truly understand the feeling if you haven’t been a victim.

A rape case shouldn’t be the kind of case someone says you lied about. That accusation alone can devastate a person, while the rapist feels powerful  and the cycle continues.

After all the courage she gathered to speak out for help, in a place where she thought her cry would be heard, she is now a laughing stock and a meme. I can only imagine what she’s going through. Even if it was a lie, she would be embarrassed.

And for someone to take a topic such as rape and lie about it just for publicity  then Nigeria is the hope of the hopeless. What a nation.

I don’t want to make this too long, so maybe that’s a topic for another day. xx