I have killed a dozen butterflies… Had their powder dust my fingers As I grasped my hand tighter and tighter Afraid to let them fly away
They were my conquests Such delicate, almost ethereal things I watched them fly, Hoping someday I can too
I have killed a dozen butterflies… Afraid to let their beauty fade away I wasn’t content with just looking I wanted assurance that they would stay
I have killed a dozen butterflies… Even though I didn’t want to That wasn’t my goal But as I flit from one extreme to another Their wings were losing their dust My desire to protect them from the world Cut off their scales Destroyed their wings Made them die a slow death
I killed those butterflies… I’m sorry But I wanted to be in control And this was the only way I knew how
I’ve thought about The way the wind would whip my hair Away from my face just seconds before I find my end there On the rocks below Before your very presence brought A kind of happiness I wasn’t aware existed The kind I thought was mythical, you know?
There were days nothing could pierce The dark and heavy clouds With agony fierce in my chest And over my head I’d wish I was dead. I’d wish I never existed.
But then you came, the proverbial ray Of sunshine that could Make my day bright in a way It had never been before You didn’t cure my depression but You made me care in a way I wasn’t even sure I was capable of.
And with a reason to give a shit A reason anyone could benefit from My existence on this planet In this galaxy In the middle of nothing surrounded by more And vaster nothing in it.
I will never forgive you. It was easier before I knew Before when my crises were existential Not born out of the pull Of your gravity, your sparkle But born of a life so lacking in light It felt as if I was born in darkness And would remain hidden in fright And rage at a world so destroyed So bustling and annoyed That I couldn’t find my breath
But then there was you You with your face and voice and It was then I knew you’d ruin me I knew the score, waiting for the other shoe To drop as I learned I would never be your choice But still. Still, I pined and whirred around you Suddenly manic, a micro planet Stuck in the pull of your gravity’s force I know you didn’t mean for it to be this way It’s just how you are. It’s just what you do.
And so here I am a satellite, or perhaps space debris I’m certainly not a rocket I’m only me Falling, falling, falling. Into your orbit.
The morning of the first Tuesday of December, I was staying at my uncle’s house because, until the night before, we had had a very unstable week.
Otherwise, I’m not someone who spends the night anywhere outside.
There was something about that morning that did not add up.
I swear, the little ten-year-old me felt something was off about it but could not really make sense of it. Everything about that morning seemed yellow.
My uncle, his wife, my two cousins, and I were having breakfast at 7 am. Everyone was looking at me with a look of pity. I was sure everyone could sense that feeling. I’m not saying that there should be a reason for people to be nice to each other, but being “over-nice” is pretty recognizable, even for a ten-year-old kid.
My cousin and I took off for school at 7:30 am. (They were trying to make it a “normal day”). Nonetheless, I chose not to pay extra attention, as I had a French class that morning with Miss Nacera.
“Allez tout le monde prend sa place pour commencer la leçon!” (Come on, everyone take their place to start the lesson!)
It all began in French class
Let me tell you something. Miss Nacera wasn’t to be messed with. She had firm features and made it clear her purpose in life was to teach French.
An hour later, I was back to being smart, nosy, and chaoting. I yelled answers without permission, talked to my classmates, and laughed. I was as wild as they get.
Miss Nacera said, “Hichem! Viens ici! Tu fais beaucoup de bruit, t’es malade où quoi!” (Hichem! Come here! You’re making a lot of noise, you’re sick or what!) and slapped me in the face.
Given the fact that I admired Miss Nacera, I did not take it personally. Indeed, I knew I was making too much noise. I went back to my seat with shy red cheeks and an embarrassed face.
Not a minute later, my cousin got off of her chair, headed to the teacher, and whispered something in her ear. I saw that, but couldn’t guess what she told her. Miss Nacera’s face turned from furious to teary.
What is going on?! I thought.
She came to me, took me to the back of the classroom, and hugged me so tight while sobbing and said: “Oh Mon Dieu, Hichem! J’suis vraiment désolée, je ne savais pas . . . . J’suis très désolée mon fils!” (oh my god, Hichem! I’m really sorry, I didn’t know . . . . I’m very sorry, my son!)
All I could think of at that moment was, “Why is she hugging me? It was not the 1st nor the 20th slap.” For the next three minutes, she held me tight while repeating the same words and crying, and I was still wondering what was up with all this drama. It was just a slap, and it was my fault!
She continued the class with a heavy heart and kept looking at me out of pity while I still could not make sense of the whole situation.
We took off again when the bell rang at 10:30 am and headed home for a lunch break to come back for afternoon classes.
On the way home, we did not speak a single word till we got to our neighborhood. We parted ways like we already knew we were not heading back to her house again. “See you at 12:45 pm,” I said, and she nodded her head without any response and left.
The last minute of getting to my doorstep involved taking a left turn and walking straight ahead for twenty meters. Then, taking another left, I could see my house, the one before the last one. So I did, I took the first left and walked those twenty meters, and then took a second left where I could see my house. And a green-painted box lying right next to it.
A green box, eight feet in length and three feet in width.
In our culture, a box of that type and paint color lying outside has only one explanation. It was pretty clear, even for a ten-year-old kid, regardless of having seen it before or not.
At that very moment, I was experiencing two very complex sentiments at the same time: the joy of things adding up after being as blurry as they were and the pain of realizing what they actually meant.
As I got to my doorstep, I stared at the box all the way, even as I opened the door and walked inside. I took a turn and walked up seven stairs towards the final wooden door that led inside. I heard recognizable crying voices.
I knocked on the door, and someone opened it. I saw some thirty women inside our home, wiping away their tears with tissue paper. Each of them hugged me as I walked towards the big guest room, not knowing whether I should head there or not but following the path they were drawing for me by moving left and right. I headed towards the room that happens to be the one you see right when you open the main wooden door that I had just walked into, the one that I couldn’t see because of the crowd on the way.
On my left was the main room where I saw my mom and my sister sitting on the floor in the middle of a circle of women surrounding them and petting their shoulders while they were crying their hearts out.
As I kept walking forward, I finally reached the big guest room, and there he was, lying on another open wooden box with a white sheet covering his entire body except for his face.
I bent down on my knees to kiss him goodbye, as told by many of the women there, “Kiss him goodbye before they come to take him, Hichem, be careful not to tear on him, honey…” Not a single tear fell before, during, or after these scenes penetrated my mind. All I did was stare in every direction in shock.
“My father is dead? How? They said he’s getting better! I just saw him at the hospital last weekend! He gave me money to buy the pair of shoes that I kept talking about and told me to return the change when he came back this weekend. My mom lied? My brothers, too? My closest sister! He was dead this morning before school? My cousin knew before I did!”
This was the beginning of what came to be a lifetime struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder. Just like a craftsman creates a piece of art, these questions running through my mind were crafting a new unprecedented version of me, that was going to dictate different rules compared to the ones I knew so far. While the ten-year-old me had yet to discover it at that time, he knew that something different and very complex had just happened to him. However, he was still not able to make any sense of it yet…
I wish that I was traumatized like people in movies are traumatized
I wish that other people could escape into my sad story to hide from their own
I wish that I was sardonic, I wish it made me funny
I wish that I was haunted not by entire years of life but by one single soundbite, a few flickering frames of film, something small enough to lock away and forget
I wish that the memories were in third person, distant, not seen through my eyes and made inescapable by perspective
I wish that it was precise, I wish I could remember each word well enough to repeat inside my head until it turns into a prayer
I wish that I woke from nightmares and sat bolt-upright, panting in bed with glycerine sweat on my brow, disheveled but somehow sexy as well
I wish that the nadir of my downward spiral was me crying and punching my own reflection in a bathroom mirror
I wish that emotional music played over the rock-bottom scenes, two thirds of the way through the movie to kid the audience that it’s all going to end right now
I wish that even as I cut into myself and the corn-syrup blood spurts from little tubes hidden under silicone skin, as artificial tears roll down my cheeks over ersatz bruises, my face would be stony and still like a statue of a saint
I wish that I would be rushed to hospital in a haze of red and blue lights and that my rescue would be medically accurate and miraculous
I wish that people around me would care
I wish that at my lowest point a manic pixie dream girl would take my hand and teach me to love life again, as if the issue isn’t what life has done to me but my attitude towards it
I wish that years of trauma could be negated by minutes of happiness
I wish that the parts of me that are trauma-formed were simply layers that obscure who I really am, that they could be shed like a snake sheds skin it no longer needs
I wish that they weren’t inseparable from me
I wish that those around me would be endlessly patient and understanding as I make my slow but steady progress, because they can see the good in me that is there for the benefit of the audience
I wish that I would have only a single setback in my recovery, and that my misery and fear would be resolved with a pep talk and a hug
I wish that I would take some minor but symbolic baby-step at the end of the movie that shows it’s all going to turn out okay
I wish that it would go the way the audience wants it to go
I wish that the ending of my movie would be happier than the start
my mind always thinks it’s a competition, between me and my intuition, repeating over and over lies I can’t deny, but on them, I rely. I’ve never even been given the second chance, always kicked out in the first glance, the loops and hoops of my empty mind not loved, making me believe I couldn’t have the doubt of the word. on every and each dream I have, I compete with myself who will be the most to be paranoid, and share, and hate the repetitions and inhibitions to be, and hate the real to see. the storm comes from the beginning of my stomach, and my hands shake in the name of a bruised scratch. I can’t deal with this emotion, I don’t want any commotion, and from the bottom of my lungs I scream, how I hate to be me, how I hate others to see, what I was meant to be.
What’s a good picture for you? mine is the one in which I’m the happiest. it’s fascinating how the parts of us that we don’t appreciate enough are the parts most worthy of appreciation. and I don’t just mean appearances.
the over consciousness of my mind that surrounds me with fear, the kind where I’m okay with staying longer but I’d rather not. I have too much to hide.
the fresh acne bleeding off my face or the bleeding of my hollow bones you won’t see a red colour on me or feel my skin rough as stone the cut on my arm that I got last night trying to rip my skin off ripping off my sight of rational consciousness that the demons already overcame but you won’t see it through the faux smile on my face you won’t see those stretch marks on my thighs or my severe guilt-ridden mind I hope you don’t tell me to look any more alive already wise enough to still be here. and maybe even stay longer.
no, I’m not depressed necessarily at least just not as happy as I looked in the last picture we took.
you see That’s the funny thing about pictures. the stillness is too biased towards the moment it was taken that I might never know what the present holds for since the moment in the picture a lot of me, has moulded into one.
the people standing close aren’t around at all to be recognised. the smiling faces meant more than just people they said, “it was a luxury which couldn’t be bought with money.” let alone, I try to put myself last and even, maybe, win both one day, the photo-booth would count me worthy even if I still am the person as I was a decade away.
so I put the polaroids on the last page of my book as if those were the last pictures I ever took.
To the one who has arrived Bringing lucidity to an interrupted- And wandering life That was once tribulated, But is now contented
To the one I wear as a second skin Bringing glee- And carving pathways to the light within Filling voids to manifest a fading dream, Breathing life back into a once dimming gleam
To the one who has heard And answered a heart in need- With a love deserved And set a caged bird free.
—
I’ve always struggled to be present. To be in the moment, to experience life fully as it is in the present moment, and more importantly, enjoy it. That is kind of how despair works, I suppose. The only thing that got me through the more harrowing moments where I felt empty was my longing for a better future. The belief that things would eventually work out is what kept me going. That is hope. My hope lies in the future, the epilogue, and this is my ode to it.
(Image courtesy of Thomas Bennie on Unsplash)
Child of Alkebulan.
Dear world…
You don’t know who I am. To you, I’m just a face among billions of other faces. A body among billions of other bodies. Billions of faces and bodies you encounter daily. But I am one among those many, A face, a body, Connected as one. A mind, a heart, Two parts, In spirit. Dear world, Call me, Human. Define me, As Being.
I, Indigo child, Seed of Alkebulan, From the womb of invisibility Appear, As I am born and- My consciousness-fuelled-wails of a babe-in-arms, Give a voice to existing.
Yet world, Even in the midst of my many new roars Still, you do not hear of me WORLD, listen, I am present. In your space, “I AM”.
World, You plunder- And I March in strong opposition, To your affliction filled and bloodied deeds I am awake While you search for different ways to remain asleep You divide, conquer, and contaminate I fight you in hidden actions and in manifested speech World, You try to silence me with your reluctance to understand That I am more than some other woman or just another man, But “I AM”. “I AM”. World, do you hear me? “I AM!”
World, You will hear of me- And, Your noises stilled By the deafening war-cries of the rising dynasty Rooted indelibly, In the fertile soils of my ancestry- A home within which I, Drift in the connecting oceans of my tranquillity Basking in every glorious vision Of an emerging me. — Africa’s struggle to come into her own resonates with me deeply. It reminds me of the challenges I’ve faced in defining my identity apart from outside influences and the divisions those influences caused in me. Now just like her, slowly rising, finding her voice, and embracing her roots, I, too, am boldly declaring who I am, being true to myself, and taking her wherever I go.
SANE: A word I have never quite been acquainted with. I was brought up by someone who physically used my head to punish the walls of the house she found no peace in. How could “sane” possibly live here? Blindfolded by my desire to run from that hellhole, I thought the only road leading to happiness is marriage.
Damn, world! Nobody told me.
Damn me, maybe? Would I have listened?
The mind is a rascal! It allows you to take the shortcut, and yet, it is sneakily aware of the baggage that it ties to your feet. How far down this wretched path do you think I traveled?
Four years into my dream, I sat in the darkened room of my mind with my naïve dreams behind me, barely visible through my obscure view. He wasn’t who I desperately wanted him to be, and I couldn’t be further from who I thought I was.
Two roads were mercilessly strewn before me. One road was the “death” screaming: “End your life! End this misery! Offload this burden and surrender to the black hole!”
Another road beckoned me to face the abyss with courage. To look at my demon, to look at me, and to wrestle with God like Jacob did. To leave limping if I had to.
People think demons are scary. But the ones that called to me were nice. What was so scary about putting an end to the endless loop of a thousand uninvited bats circling your mind? How is an offer to end one’s self-annihilation not attractive?
But do you know what is hard? Turning your head towards the light when you are six feet under the darkness. Because light is not just warm and inviting, but it also reveals the many faces of the ghosts one has been dancing with.
It is a complex thing: to accept a truth one refuses to see. Much more for me who kept my eyes closed-shut and called it dark.
But…
A simple song, a warming hug, a kind word or gesture even from yourself to you if that is all you can afford.
A listening ear, an understanding soul and one that sits with you, not judging, holding your hand as you wrestle with your demons.
Light, I dare say, will always overcome darkness. So, to you readers I say, may you be all these things to the people around you, including yourself.
