je te laisserai des mots
I will write you notes
I feel an itch in the marrow of my bones. I feel like liquid matter has clogged up in its cavity, blocking fluidity, and causing my body to crack under this discomfort. I feel an illness coming. I feel too much to put into words here. But I will find these words and drag them to this white page and place them against other words until they make sense, and until my condition is defined. Maybe then I will find peace.
I often wonder about the human condition and how everything is placed on a pedestal for one to reach. And when you reach, you are graded and incentivised to catch the very next pedestal as you cycle along. I think of it as train tracks, never-ending, with no true purpose except the one that you find for yourself with conviction. To some people, life is beautiful. I think things will look as beautiful as sunset as long as you can look past the reality of their existence. In this case, our reality is mostly unnecessary.
Every waking day, I make a mental note of activities, and they line up as challenges that I pull against all day. Luckily for no one, Lagos is exciting with uncertainties. We live by our throats and skin our senses alive so we don’t react to every single thing. So even after I have identified my challenges, there is still another one out there, joining the line without warning and having no consequence to itself. And I pull and pull.
I work as a digital marketing officer at a multi-level marketing company. I resume every day, 9–5, to a 5-storey building that has a basement and a penthouse. The lift has a dirty mirror with which I take mirror selfies on some days and is usually turned off by 4 pm to save diesel. Everyone has to walk downstairs once it is turned off. People that work at other businesses in the office building nod their heads and smile when you greet them in the stairwell. I am talking about all the senseless excitements of my workplace that have become drab since my second day there.
Maybe it is this drowsy motion that has caused my pain. It hurts, not like it is actually something that hinders my ability to forge ahead, but maybe like the lack of something that soothes me and allows me to pause, or stop.
I think that halt is happiness. Or love, unhindered, generous, limitless. But it is something that can’t be quantified. If only I can find feet in it. It seems purposeful.
Flowers will blossom beside train tracks and it is OK to be consumed by them as you chug along. There is nothing at the end of these tracks for me anyway; only more tracks, I presume. But the sky and its clouds are something to muse about. After I have gone on my way, they will remain.
I have got the antidote for smiles and happiness, it seems. It resides on the bridge of my nose, spreading all over my face. My heart has no say in the matter; one cannot surface what hasn’t sunk yet. She holds most of the trauma, I think. They seep out into my dreams from sad songs that I don’t want to stop playing. Work these days crushes me between my achievements and aspirations. My love life is a mess, and my partner says she wants me but is ready to let me go if I cough twice. I miss my family but they do not know of this illness. It would be foolish to have them worry.
I want to be happy, and have people be happy for me. I will write you more of these notes when I find the courage to. But for now, on these train tracks, I will look beyond the fog, into the shrubbery for the next purple of hydrangea or yellow-tipped lilies. I should find some along the way. And if I am unlucky and do not, I will look to the sky.
Je te laisserai des mots
En-dessous de ta porte
En-dessous de les murs qui chantent
Tout près de la place où tes pieds passent
Cachés dans les trous de ton divan
Et quand tu es seule pendant un instant,
Ramasse-moi
Quand tu voudras
Lagos
11/08/2022
