What the H?

when life descends into the pit / i must become my own candle / willingly burning myself to light up the darkness around me

to be loved so well without merit or compensation just me, my mess & i shook.

some people when they hear your story. contract. others upon hearing your story, expand. and this is how you know.

okay, okay. it’s august & last week i was beginning to get comfortable with the warmth after midwinter passes but has johannesburg's weather ever been stable? there is currently a cold front & my soul is currently decorated with the steady and secure flames of a fire place in the mansions in american movies. the day before i got my second degree i got such bad news. i wonder why we think because we want something we can have it? let’s say you’re in a race, right? with two thousand three hundred and something people, and then you’re in the top thirty, and then you’re in the top 4, the top fucking four out of two thousand three hundred and something people, and then you don’t win. the gag is when you glimpsed at the trophy it had your name on it. it makes no sense because i have never met anyone with my name, i only know of fictional characters in young adult literature & local television that share my name, so whose name was on the trophy because it looked like mine? the day after graduation, i cried so much, i even fell sick to the point that i was on bed rest for a week. it’s crazy how our emotions can cripple us. bubba was in town for me & i basically missed the exception to this usual biannual occasion because of my emotions. but emotions are temporary motherfuckers so i recovered. soonafter, Xxxxxxxx told me he loves me. i knew that i loved him sometime in March but i couldn’t tell him that. we live in two different cities. he has a girlfriend. & i have more than one bed. he calls, plays the piano & freestyles in Xhosa. then tells me in English that he said he loves me. “i love you, Hazel” he called again last week and he speaks about us like we exist in the future. someone has a life with me in the future but i don’t even know what i'm doing tomorrow. i have plans. i have ideas of how i am going to execute them but i don’t know. how can he be so sure? like i’m a leading role in all the scenes. who cast me? did i even go to the audition? Xxxxxxxx & i met again last winter, you remember right? i blew him off in the winter of 2012. well, it’s the winter of 2016 and i am about to meet Xxxxxxxx’s friends. he casually holds my hand as if holding hands is something we do. i gasp and my lungs hold onto the air as if it is my last breath. my body has sorta been a battlefield my entire life. after the rape, my hands just didn’t do things hands usually do, like hold another hands. so muscle memory caused me to retract from his warm gesture. our journey from the gate to the tiny living room packed with strangers who were waiting to become friends has now been brought to a halt. i am trying to exhale but i know an explanation has to follow, he is allowed to hold my hand, i actually shouldn’t have ever let go of his hand five years ago, but my body, my mind, this was the first time since. so i am considering holding onto that last breathe until my soul escapes my body but as he turns behind i am met with eyes that have a reassurance that screams “it’s alright”. there is an inexplicable comfort that i get when we are together, like when you have the key to a door or a car. i reached out and held his hand again that day. i also told him that i love him. i also sent it via text. and now i daydream of saying it to him while looking into his eyes and holding his hands. is love an emotion or a drug? i read a definition that says a ‘drug’ is something administered in order to induce stupor or insensibility. towards the end of july, i am beginning to think that the love i have for M is a drug. i am trying to understand how we have been brought to where we currently are by love. it makes no sense. i have been trying so hard to make sense of things. emotions are tumultuous and i think that it why i refrain from reducing love to an emotion. the power love has over the body, the soul, the mind is something else. i am still gathering my thoughts on that because i am slightly more preoccupied on wrapping my mind around the fact that the left side of my face is temporarily paralysed. the devil is working overtime & i am so tired but ayyyy it’s also 2am so maybe that’s why. but tonight my soul was reignited with a passion for life that is so inexplicable that it could only divine.