I don’t know where to start or what to write. Do I ask about how you are faring? Do I ask of how your son is? Or how the billion children you have are? *awkward silence* This was probably a bad idea-you are way too busy solving world crisis to read this trivial letter.
I’m still here and I figured I might as well complete the letter I started. I want to talk to you so bad! Lately, I feel so distant. It’s like my life is constantly moving without direction. I feel it and I know it that I left you somewhere along the road. We used to be really close. But all I feel in my heart right now is emptiness, the void you left.
I don’t remember where I lost you. Was it when I got new friends? A new job? The cars and the fame? I’m calling out but I hear no answer. I’m reaching out but I can’t feel you…why are you so far from me? Please don’t let me go. Life is so scary without you. Monsters roam the world trying to prey on me, but you said you will pray for me…So why do I still feel afraid?
Fear wraps me about like a wet blanket, I lie in guilt and sleep with condemnation, and I thought I was a new nation…The past is gone, the new is here, the old creature is gone and I’m made new. But right now I feel I just delved back into the world, preferring the old coat to the new…
Frustrated, angry, depressed, can’t take this no more and then I turn to my demons. Pouring out all my secrets like a leaking pipe, so desperate for a word of comfort and a hug-I get none. Ashamed and alone I turn my back on the good, since the world is full of evil, let me be d-evil.
Words on paper don’t make any sense, I’m so tensed, can’t even complete my sentence. I guess what I’m trying to say is… I want to come back home. Like the prodigal son shamelessly feeding on the meal of pigs, I’ve eaten crap for so long it leaves me in tears. I miss you dad. Please take me back.
While running for miles without restrictions Roaring , stamping his authority as king.
I long for the days of simplicity ,
When it was either black or white
When there were no complications ,
Like a beach, the ocean and land intersecting but not conquering each other – mutual respect,
I miss the mutual respects,
I miss when the world didn’t have grey,
When it was color blind,
When there were no colors…
How I envy dogs,
Color blind from the spectrum of the world,
From the discriminations and segregation.
I dream of a world where the continents haven’t been connected by trade and greed,
Transcending over the ages into commerce and integration but still having the tenets of its heritage of greed and trade.
I envy the ants , untainted from the world, their civilization still as it was eons ago
I’m lost in trying to understand their way of life, how could they survive without “modern economics and commerce ” the devils of this world
But yet they have existed , they have thrived, they have survived.
What does that say about their ” more evolved ” Homo sapiens brothers? ,
Related by the ecosystem who have “evolved”
But still find a way to disregard the most fundamental aim of evolution, “survival”
How are they different from the savage beasts of the wild? .
I am African but feel less and less African with every passing day,
Like a caterpillar slowly transforming into a completely different person ,
Transforming into a butterfly.
But does this mean that I’m changing for the better ?
For of course, I am more beautiful , more flamboyant , alluring , pleasing to the eye, easily acceptable to the world , a world whose benchmark for acceptance is vanity.
With my newly found “acceptance ” by the world I have completely been transformed ,
Leaving my “crude and ugly ” caterpillar form behind,
Abandoning my roots, my heritage , becoming less African with every passing day.
What is a tree without its roots I pray thee? What is a building without its foundation?
Change comes and sweeps me off my feet,
Like a mermaid , she sings enticing songs to my ear,
O sweet melody! making its way to my heart, swaying me away from who I truly am ,
Leading me to her, and like a mermaid , beautifully created, her smile eventually captures my heart for good but her claws drag me down to the depths of the sea, destroyed , forever lost … Not just to myself but to the world.
But is change bad? Can’t there be a good transition ?
Of course change is the most constant thing in the world.
With time as her sister, they are an unconquerable force ,
Resistance is futile either for bad or good, we must change,
I crave the days of the past, I envy when I was simple, raw, untainted ,I miss when I was me.
Everything cometh and goeth, like sun rises and sunsets. Vanishing into the abyss of our memories, like a mirage in the desert. Nothing seems to be permanent, stable, without fluctuation. Even time can’t fight it, as it trickles down, slowly but ever so surely. Nothing seems to be long lasting. Nothing seems to be forever.
We continue to go on like it doesn’t matter, like we aren’t all thinking the same thing. The inevitable, death. That experience we cannot but face, whether we be standing chin high to face it or ducking for cover as it charges onward to meet us, we, being prepared or not.
Smiles switch to frowns that switch to smiles and frowns over again; the unending conundrum Spins endlessly as we go onward with our lives, knowing our inevitable faith. Worrying never seems to solve anything, most certainly not this universal problem. We do it anyway, like some human impulse to stress. Rather than embrace it, accept it, fuse with it like birds in the sky, like fishes in the sea. We reject it, reject the obvious, reject our already plotted path. And why won’t we? , why won’t we fight for what we believe in?, for a future beyond the cold yard gates of death. For eons we be fighters, whether it be for our liberty or for our pride, blacks and Spartans alike, we have always been fighters. Never giving up, even when death cometh knocking on our very gates, when she stretches out her hands and grabs us by the neck, slowly choking the very life out of us. We wriggle none the less, with our last breath, we wriggle, less we be the next passengers on Kharon’s boat.
The question that many of our most brilliant minds have failed to even ask , talk less of answer is, why do we really live?. Why do we breathe, and love and hope and dream and believe. Many of us never seem to ask this, never even conjure it in our very narrow minds, filled with superficial dreams of what we want and how we want to get there. But the truth be, why do we want these things?, will it make us more comfortable ? More important ? Happier? . Will it stop that unwanted guest, death , from knocking on our doors?.
If we be as shallow enough to believe that, to believe that we are born for ourselves, then humanity is surely damned.
What then is life?, I pray ye. A play that has entrapped all of us, regardless of creed, race, nationality, gender, age. Forcing us to do her bidding, to act what we believe to be right; to live for ourselves, believing that we be permanent characters in its play, forgetting that we be dispensable, that we can be, and most certainly are going to be kicked into what we fear the most, the arms of her twin, death. cast in her own play. A play that no one ever watches. Therefore, can’t we thus say that we be merely travelers? , passing through this jungle to yonder? , and if then we be travelers, shan’t we be less greedy?, selfish, self centered. Shan’t we strive to leave something more important than a tombstone Inshrined into the earth for of course, riches cannot make the journey with us to yonder. Isn’t a travelers duty, besides seeing and striving to experience, struggling to see all that he can in the small window of his apartment?, over looking the city he has come to see, but only for a short time. Shan’t he then, knowing all this, fight , not to survive per-say, but also to leave a lasting legacy. Because , of course, he is a mere traveler, simply passing through.
Mfon Etuk, 2015
Dainty M. 