FATHER’S SON - CELESTE

Your father was exactly like you when he was younger.

Yes. I didn’t stutter.

He also snuck out to parties, stayed out late and chased women the exact same way you are doing.

It makes me wonder, “Will I become my father?”

There are so many songs talking about being your father’s son, the burden, beauty and the heritage comes with.

And I like those a lot, because they connect with me in ways I can’t understand. Yet I shouldn’t relate to them

Because for a long time, I considered myself on the sidelines of this debate. Was I for my father? Was I against him?

It’s something my dad always called me out on, my passiveness that allows others to force me into a decision

“My father has never been particularly good at telling me what he feels. But somehow, I always knew what he thought. And strangely, his opinion has always mattered to me more than I understood.”

Maybe that’s because every time I look at him, I see a version of myself I haven’t met yet.”

Relationships are weird. Especially the oldest ones you grow up with. Relationships built on blood and tears.

Intangible cords bind us to one another. Volatile and destructive we tussle about. Like waves that crash into each other.

And I think that’s what makes them so beautiful to study.

My father and I have always been there for each other, one way or another.

Him as stoic as ever, me as curious as ever. My father and I are two peas forced in a pod that can’t understand each other. An architect and an artist. A pessimist and an optimist

I respect him and his opinions in a way I can’t understand. In a way I’m not aware of till something triggers me. And I look at myself like huh?

I never understood why he let me choose my own path. Because he can be very restrictive but he’s not on the major things in life. And that gave me space. It gave me room to breathe.

Then I started to notice this pattern. Of him actively giving me space to think and make my own decisions, owning up to my failures as well as my wins. In all this I’ve never understood my dad.

So I decided to do exactly that. To start looking for opportunities to understand him.

So we began to talk more. About his hopes and dreams. His failures and the projects he’s undertaken. About how he handled loss and pain, in some ways he was imperfect. But this was a man I could understand, because I had also struggled through loss.

I remember the first time I saw my dad hurt. I saw how old he had become, then I kept on seeing it. How the years had wrestled with a great man and how he had shielded me from a lot.

I always saw my dad as just my dad and didn’t really see him as a person. But in these conversations, I could finally see him.

He loves farming, he loves tennis. And he loves his life as it is, there isn’t much he’s discontented about.

He also had times where he fell in love and got his heart broken.

He’s chased several dreams and failed at too many of them. Yet he still keeps on dreaming.

And it was in times like these I saw my dad as the bravest man who ever lived.

And I realized I actually wouldn’t mind becoming like my dad. He’s a pretty chill guy.

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My brain has always been my greatest enemy. Men used to stare at me weird. I used to think I was seeing things. Fathers used to give me flowers, boys were always rushing to give me sweets. At six years I wasn’t sure how to take it, people acted so nice to me no matter how vile I was.

Trust me I was a vile kid.

‘It’s your grey eyes Shenai.’ Father used to say. As an Indian girl born in a shy town where Indian was a rarity, I was celebrity enough. But my eyes made things worse, people would stare at me mesmerized, old and young, unable to help themselves.

My parents themselves were pretty normal. Father, a factory hand and mother, the queen of the house preferred shouting at me than speaking normally. Mother treated me like I was just a troublesome kid, I hated it. I wanted her to treat me like how everyone else did, like a queen.

Then I noticed something odd. Boys ganging up bullying girls, beating them because they were bigger and tougher. I decided to start bullying them to teach them a lesson. They would stare at my eyes, confused. Till I hit one of them hard enough then they all ran away. I became the neighbourhood star, every girl’s best friend.

Mother made it a point to chase me around the house with a hanger whenever I beat the boys picking on other girls. I hated her for it.

My brain has always been my greatest enemy. I hate studying. I always danced wee bit shy of the bottom of the class. Not because I wasn’t smart but just because I couldn’t be bothered to learn.

As the most troublesome tomboy in sixth grade, beating older boys was my favourite pastime. Most of them were too busy staring at my eyes or my chest, boys were disgusting creatures. It used to creep me out, but I got used to it.

Everyone approved of me beating the boys. Everyone except one.

The boy I had been crushing on ever since I could walk, Chang.

He used to be bullied by boys. Always been beaten. But I saved him and they all just stayed away from him

He always hated when I was violent. He treated me like I wasn’t special, that made him special.

I confessed my feelings to Chang. A look I didn’t understand passed over his face, he smiled and said he’ll be my boyfriend. Not too long after, I walked in on Chang trying to kiss a scared girl behind the washrooms. My fist flew before I knew what I was doing. Chang left our town after that, the girls cheered. They told me he was no longer the good boy I used to know, he had been sneaking his hand up girl’s skirts and they couldn’t tell me because they were scared.

My brain has always been my greatest enemy. Father passed today. Got hit by a tow truck. I saw it happen. Mother doesn’t shout anymore. She doesn’t even speak. When she heard about Father’s death, she became mute and reserved. She just stared at me emptily every time I tried to talk to her and for once, I missed my nagging mother. Maybe I should’ve left school then.

College was hard. I struggled to fit into community college; all the girls were boy obsessed and the boys were idiots. Boys no longer beat girls, so I couldn’t bully them anymore. Strange to lose your sense of purpose. Men staring at my eyes became weird again, so I started wearing sunglasses. I felt so lonely.

Worse still, I hadn’t processed Father’s death. I wasn’t sure how to deal with the fact that he took mother away and left a shell of her. Therapy didn’t help either.

I came home one vacation and Mother looked better; her face had the hints of a smile when I told her stories from college. I slept in her bed telling her stories, everyday till school resumed.

My brain has always been my greatest enemy. Mother died today, I quit school. I didn’t see the point anymore. I left home too; there was nothing for me there anymore. The smell of freshly baked bread and strong coffee that wafted through the town every morning just repulsed me now.

I took a train to nowhere, just hoping to run away from everything that has happened. Wearing a hoodie and sunglasses, I trudged through the world, in search of something I wasn’t sure of myself.

Every night I dreamt of Mother’s deathless gaze and Father’s limp body on the sidewalk. My parents didn’t want to let me go.

Every night, I remember how it felt when I entered the house. Heavy with the scent of death. Mother’s rotting corpse, waiting for me, eyes open staring at me deathless. Her eyes, milky, finally close to grey. I calmly called an ambulance and they whisked her away. I left town before her body hit the morgue.

I hated myself for it. I hated myself for leaving her cold and alone, I hated myself for not seeing her final resting place and I guess she hated me too because of how much she chased me in my dreams.

Then I started hearing their voices. Conversations long forgotten echoed in my mind. I remembered my mother’s careless laughter, free of hardships and sorrow her voice rang throughout the house. I remembered Father’s kindness, always preaching love and acceptance every chance he got. I cried the first time this happened; it had been so long I thought I had forgotten their voices.

Their voices chased me day and night. Till I was finally worn out and decided to return home.

My brain has always been my greatest enemy. It’s mostly quiet now. My head isn’t as noisy anymore. I came back home to my small town; the old, weathered buildings looked so foreign yet so familiar to me. I walked through the town with my sunglasses and hoodie.

I followed Father’s voice and I went straight to his grave. It was bare and dusty; a single dead rose lay on the grave. Beside his, mother’s grave. I stared at it guiltily, I turned about to leave, when I heard her voice, softer than I had ever heard it.

“You can’t control everything around you. Sometimes you have to allow things to happen to you.”

Tears began flow effortlessly. I remembered when she said this. When I was six, my cat had died and I chased the dog responsible till it left the town. When she said this at the time, I couldn’t understand.

Unsatisfied, I began taking my anger out on the first thing I saw, a group of boys ganging up on a girl.

Before all I felt was rage, but now my mind is finally clear.

I cried like a baby. Puffy faced and red-eyed, I took off the sunglasses and curled up in a ball, laying on both their graves.

The memories that flooded my mind weren’t painful anymore but freeing.

I decided to stay in the town. I still hear their voices from time to time. But now they are there’s more colour to their voices.

I threw the sunglasses away and traded my hoodie for a pretty dress. Men still stare, but it doesn’t bother me much anymore.

I learned to negotiate peace with my brain.

~Excerpt from a story in the works.

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I’ve always hated lemons. They left a sour, tangy taste in my mouth. I don’t know when it started, but rather than feel all the emotions swirl within me, I chose to numb it all with a lemon. It took time, to learn to ignore my emotions. I had always been loud, Mother hated it. Saying I should keep my dreams to myself, that I can’t change the world. I’ve started to think she was right.

Sometimes you need a stronger flavour to keep the pain out. I bit into an onion till my vision blurred, not from the onion but from the pain in my chest I chose to ignore. Mother had died today. Instead of crying, I chose to be in the kitchen… I think. Hacking through meat with a butcher’s knife, the sound of the cleaver slicing through bone, calmed me.

“A woman’s job is to be in the kitchen and be silent...” Mother would scream at me whenever I complained about the kitchen. With time I learned to love the kitchen… I think. The only future I could envision now, were the four walls of the kitchen closing in on me.

Father stumbled in drunk, cursing at Mother for dying. I stayed silent, it was easier this way. He looked me dead in the eye and begun cursing at me, rabid with spit flying about the kitchen. He picked up the closest thing to him, a frying pan and whirled it at me. I dodged quickly but kept my eyes locked on his, I didn’t want to give him an excuse to use his fists.

“Where is my food, your mother forgot to make me food before she died,” he said disappointment heavy in his voice. “The food better be ready before I’m done bathing or I’ll beat you black and blue with that pan.”

I felt my lips quiver. I tasted salt on my lips and realized I was crying. He noticed, laughing wickedly and stumbled out. I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding and slumped on the kitchen counter.

“I knew I should’ve given birth to a son.”

I stared at his receding drunken form and rage boiled up within me. I stared at the butcher’s knife resting on the kitchen counter and back at him. I stood up and took the knife, my hand shaking with rage, grief and fear at what I was about to do.

“The devil in you should die in this kitchen,” even dead, Mother’s voice still echoed in the kitchen walls. I tore myself away from the kitchen and screamed, Father turned just in time to see the knife coming down.

“A woman’s job is to be in the kitchen and be silent, keep the devil in you quiet.”

~Excerpt from a story in the works

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People are fickle.

Family especially can be extremely fickle. So sometimes it can be hard to tell when you are loved by family.

Family can do things so absurd and claim it's in the name of love. Unfortunately for family, I’m a skeptic.

And I think that's the best way to live. But that's exactly why, sometimes, I push my loved ones away.

Family should love how they see fit. After all love is beautiful when freely given.

I've seen love take many forms, but never betrayal, never neglect. To me it makes no sense. But they, fueled by their desire to be right and justified in their collective thinking. See me to be scared of love and connection.

They don't know exactly what I'm doing. But they can feel the distance. It makes them uncomfortable, then things get messy.

That distance, to them, becomes the problem, not the actions that created it. They try to close the gap in ways that feel like pressure rather than understanding, as if proximity alone can repair what trust has not yet rebuilt.

And maybe that is where the real conflict lies: not in a lack of ‘love’, but in different definitions of what ‘love’ is allowed to demand.

How do you explain to family that they are broken. Carrying years of trauma, they casually offload on you depending on where the wind blows. Trauma they call love.

The way family show their love sometimes makes you doubt.

But it could be that's the only way they know how to express love. So I don't blame them, not in the slightest.

They grew up in different times, arguably harsher times and it seems our definition of love keeps evolving.

I’m old enough to forgive the transgressions you don’t even notice, but please need my distance.

Because blood may bind us, but once it’s spilled, its stain is impossible to ignore. “Love” becomes a convenient tool, allowing people to avoid accountability while expecting unquestioned acceptance.

As painful as this is. It raises a harder question

What happens when someone genuinely starts to care and wants to help. What happens when someone from family changes.

I'm as lost as you are on what to do. Inasmuch as I praise skepticism what happens when it becomes more of an obstacle than a filter.

How would you learn to love someone who sought your pain for the fun of it?

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Don't wait till his hands are on your neck before you realize it.

I knew a friend who chased a man she believed she loved so obsessively, because of how he made her feel. At first I believed she was chasing an idea of love, but what if she was in love. It's a question I dare not think about because of the all consuming nature of her ‘love’ that resulted in nothing positive.

They got together, but she ended up broken by her object of desire. He learned he could be abusive with her. It didn't start with violence, not at first. A cuss word because he felt disgusted, an unprovoked slap because she kept on screaming. When she ended up battered and bruised that's when we, her friends, realized the problem and reported it.

She lied for him of course, he got away from her and straight in the arms of another woman. Yet she still kept on chasing, searching for something none of us could understand.

Don't wait till you see your face reflected in blood, before you get away from him.

It never looks like this in the beginning, if it did no one would stay. Yet it always ends like this. All it takes is a bad day, or nagging so loud you want to make it stop.

I recently heard the story from his perspective and it made sense. Of course it did.

He had seen his father do this to his mother till it became normal. Everyday the sound of a belt landing on flesh kept him up, dried bloodstains filled every corner of their household. His parents are still together.

He claimed he loved her, he claimed he would do anything for her, his soulmate. He claimed he would do better… if she just stopped nagging. They ended up back together. And it became worse.

His sick twisted version of love broke her, debasing her to a lesser version of herself. Devouring everything till she was a shell of herself.

Today for the first time, I saw her excited. Smiles were finally reaching her eyes. I was excited for her. Till she told me why. He wants to marry her

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Depression has become a norm. I don’t mean the kind of depression that will land you in an asylum. There’s flavor to depression I call casual depression. Where life has lost all meaning and feels so gray, but things aren’t bleak enough for you to seek help. It’s just enough pain you can shoulder without screaming outwardly, yet it feels like there’s a hole in your chest.

In these moments life starts to make less sense than it ever did. Life gets increasingly random. Nothing makes sense anymore, you feel like your village people are chasing you. Robbing you while you have nothing to give.

Does it easier? I can’t tell. But the future doesn’t matter right now. For you who is struggling with life, in this minute, I see you. I see you more than anyone ever has. I see you and I commend you for pushing through when life doesn’t make sense.

All we need is someone to see our struggles. Sometimes that’s enough. It’s okay to feel beaten down and lost. It’s okay to feel hopeless sometimes.

Sit with me in silence and I’ll understand. I’m fluent in your pain, I see you.

So, let’s sit together in your pain and feel it all. Slowly, without noticing, the weight doesn’t vanish, you get stronger. The best thing you can do for yourself isn’t to hope it all passes, but rather to feel it all.

Let’s sit with it, without rushing to fix it. Not to make it disappear, but to remind ourselves we’re still here while it exists.

And maybe that’s enough for now.

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There’s a feeling I’m chasing. It’s hard to describe.

It feels like the laughter I used to hear in kindergarten. I can barely remember their faces, but the laughter of the friends I used to know still echoes sometimes in my head.

My grandfather used to bribe me with plantain chips. Every Sunday, as Ghanaian football matches were played on the television with ridiculous commentary, he would hand me one. A silent bribe to stay with him and get excited about the matches. I kept coming back every Sunday. I remember my grandfather’s comforting presence, but for some reason I can’t remember what his smile looked like anymore.

I hate these patches in my memory. It’s like watching a perfectly good movie in English that switches to Hausa when it wants.

I remember the swish of the wind as my tennis racket missed every ball thrown to it. Yet I was so happy to be on a tennis court, to be like my father.

Journalling helps, sometimes I remember things I’m not supposed to. An argument I could barely process as a kid I experience in real-time. Parents expressing pain in ways unintelligible to the other. In these moments I watch my childhood self so lost and useless in the situation I can’t help but pity him. Because that’s all he used to do to himself.

I also remember my childhood conception of love. Crushing on anything with a skirt and forgetting after 3 days. Fun times.

God, I used to hate school. Class 2 me would run up to the reception of my school and cry till my mother came. Slowly but surely school distracted me enough for me to want to see my mother less often.

But soon I would remember the reasons I hated school.

I remember my music teacher, breaking flutes on people’s heads. I remember the sound of lashes flying, as people rushed to exit only for another teacher to block the exit, two canes in both hands. All of them underpaid idiots, releasing the stress from their failed lives on us. Then there was the Indian teacher I hated so much. She used to single me out in class 5, then she died when I entered class 6. I was so excited. Don’t judge me, she was a bitch.

Nowadays I see him more often, my childhood self. Happier in ways than I could ever be. Because even though he went through a lot, he was so oblivious everyday had a renewed smile.

There was a time where bitter was once a taste, now it’s a person. I sit here writing as a bitter person reminiscing on experiences I will never have again. The question echoes in my mind, “What if my best years were behind me?”

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I love my wife so much, even in her death, I would build her a home as precious as her memory. I imagine these are the thoughts that were racing through Emperor Shah Jahan’s mind as he was building his final dedication to his wife.

I’m not Moslem. I can’t tell the deep cultural significance this monument has to years of Islamic growth. But the fact that this building was made because a husband was deeply affected by his wife’s death struck me.

In death even more so than life, my love will reach you in your deepest slumber. I can imagine him, nights on end waking up from her smile, trying to capture a glimpse of her smile. He started with poetry, moved to art but finally decided the greatest evidence of his love should be seen in marble. The most beautiful marble structure ever known to man. The entire love project was completed after 22 years. Imagine loving your partner so much, you create a love letter made of stone. This love letter deepens the faiths others over 300 years later; I think he might be the most devoted romantic I’ve come across.

It makes you wonder, how much did he love her while she was still alive. Allow me to paint a picture.

He fell in love with her the first time he saw her. They went everywhere together, he used to travel with her all over his empire, which was unusual at the time because wives were supposed to stay home.

He was often seen publicly declaring his love to her. No emperor before him had done this, but the emperor had found his best friend, someone he could break tradition for. He would spend hours, walking with her in fields and conversing like the world had faded away, for hours on end, in these moments people knew not to disturb their emperor, with every conversation, he was falling in love all over again.

He gave her the greatest respect, endowing her with the most endearing title ‘Mumtaz Mahal’, roughly translating to ‘The jewel of the palace.’ And made everyone call her by that name.

And she too loved him back so dearly. Choosing to be with him intense moments of strife, when he was a teen far before he became his father’s favoured son, a successful military commander, the crown prince. Through his rise, his political struggles, his rebellion, his exile, and finally his coronation, she remained steadfast by his side. She believed him in moments where everyone else turned their backs on him. Their love was the stuff of legends, the greatest gift from Allah he had received.

Love so great it stirs you from slumber at the crack of dawn and lulls to sleep. He heard his wife’s voice in the wind. Beckoning him to love greater even in death. Try as I might. I still don’t understand it; how do you love someone so greatly it echoes, especially in death for 35 years.

I believe he found his greatest source of inspiration in her, his will to live was so tied with her, his best friend, his wife and heart. He aged rapidly after her death, falling into intense bouts of depression and grief. He was constantly seen weeping at her grave or breaking down whenever he remembered her.

Before his wife's death the emperor's beard had not more than ten or twelve grey hairs, which he used to pluck, which eventually turned grey then white in no time. He needed spectacles because his eyes deteriorated from constant weeping.

His love was so great it cost him his kingdom. He was overthrown because he spent all his years after immersed in the Taj Mahal with little care for anything else. After his imprisonment, for 8 years he was placed in a building, a little distance from the Taj Mahal. Where he was often seen at his room’s balcony, gazing at his lovers smile as the marble glinted in the sunlight.

And after years of living for her sake, he was finally laid to rest beside her. The emperor’s wish had finally been granted; he was eternally united with his best friend. His love lives on with her in the afterlife. Over 300 years later we get to witness the fruits of his love blossoming greater even in death, the Taj Mahal.

His love letter captured the hearts of many with its aesthetics and message. So much so, the Taj Mahal is crowned the honor of being one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

Hundreds of poets before me, dedicated themselves to expressing the depth of their love, but Shah Jahan has outdone us all with the Taj Mahal. The greatest love letter to exist.

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I’m an artist but I’m confused. I’m confused at the meaning of life, confused at what I should chase and shouldn’t. Confused at what the right thing to do is. Life is overwhelming. And it’s harder still because you feel you are making all the wrong decisions in the right moments. It’s not even the fear of failure at this point because I fail so progressively and spectacularly every time, I’m honestly impressed. With an audience beholden to every one of my failures, I’m in my worst nightmare.

I hate being confused, but I can’t do anything about it. Then amidst my complex philosophical musings, something simple happens. I notice a couple who can’t keep their hands off each other. I see kids run around, their mother shouting her head off, but still very much proud of her little imps. I feel the buzz of life around me in a crowd. I begin to notice love and life in all its shades around me. And it stirs me in a way I don’t understand.

Did the thoughts go? No. But I realized I was missing out on life.

So, I resolved, to chase what I love with my utmost dedication. Even if it kills me. I’m prepared for your love, or lack of it to be the death of me. Because if I can’t chase what I love, what is the point of being an artist?

And to my constant failures, I look on them with pride because they carried me this far. As I grew, even with the scanty information I had, I tried my best and made the most of the situation and that alone deserves commendation. The more I put myself out there, I realize something. Everyone has an opinion yet nothing to show, so to all the haters. I’m making my own path.

I’m an artist but I want you to feel something. I don’t see the point in writing or drawing and people just scroll past. I want to create something so prolific it strikes your soul. I want my poetry to be scrawled in your mind. To me, a big reason art is worthwhile is because, you can express something people feel but struggle to put to words. That shared sense of community is worth every moment of honing my craft.

I’m an artist but I love to learn. It feels so contradictory to me. I love the feeling of racking my brains and not understanding what I’m looking at after hours. I love feeling like a child and stumbling in a new domain because it teaches me humility. Learning has been my greatest source of humility and I’m glad.

I’m an artist, but I want to understand business. In as much as I love art and writing. I prefer to do them in a penthouse, rather than scribble in a homeless shelter. I don’t believe in the starving artist troupe. I believe I can learn to be extraordinary at business and be an artist. Because I believe business to be a craft that can be honed.

Too long have I seen people starve because of illiteracy. Missing opportunities not because they lacked talent, but because they didn’t understand the game.

They had skill. They had drive. But no language for value, no grasp of leverage, no understanding of how money actually moves. I realized something,
ignorance isn’t just limiting.

It’s expensive.

And the world doesn’t reward potential. It rewards those who know how to position themselves.

I’m an artist but I don’t believe. I chose this to be the last because religion has always been dicey for me. I’ve chased religion in my life for a lot of reasons, at different intervals. And I can finally say I’m tired. My belief has lost steam. Yet in this moment, away from church and all it means, my belief has been its strongest. Because now it’s honest.

This is a compendium of the intensity of my feelings over the last 3 months. It’s a bit scattered but I trust you’ll find it a good read.

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I’m scared. There’s a feeling that has been chasing me. A feeling I’ve been trying to ignore. The sense of the world closing in on you. Your windpipe collapsing as currents pulling you under. The weight of existential loneliness. A burden each human being shoulders in various forms. For some it dwells in poverty, others experience it in riches. But it always lurks.

At random intervals, I’ve felt it. Creeping up on me, calling my name in the dead of night, shaking me from sleep. A being without a form. Existential dread has been a companion and my greatest enemy. Unbeknownst to me, the cause of some of my most destructive impulses. For some it prowls in moments of intense boredom, for me, it appears in moments when life feels stagnant.

Above that is the call to something greater, it beckons to me like sleep to a fool. Yet my inability to articulate the call has left me screaming without a mouth. I am a prisoner in my own mind.

Maybe it was God given; I can’t tell. That’s beyond my reach, what is within my grasp is to work with the broken shards of genius in my palms that ever so often injure me. It might sound fancy, to be beckoned by genius. Yet remember, this call ever so cleverly hides existential dread.

That is what I, the creative felt. A sense of woe so cleverly interwoven with a call of greatness. In a vision, in a place that exists in shadow and prophecy, I saw a life. A life placed so poignantly in front of me, I had no other recourse. A life of majesty and greatness, its walls, boundless.

Heralded by she, Creativity, the Angel. Bathed in light, hiding her face behind a veil. A holy matrimony of light and shadow, she tethers at the edge of my soul, standing as my Greatest Witness.

At times I feel I am in a dream yet awake. At times, she appears with wings, in other moments she’s the woman I fell in love with. Her smile keeping me up at night, her imperfect crooked teeth, the fuel that allows me to burn the midnight candle. She’s the fever dream that keeps me awake, my inspiration and my greatest desire.

I write, urged by an angel, my angel and chased by dread. I bare my soul to the world to heed my call, with the pursuit of betterment of my craft.

I immortalize my art in time. My cry to the absurd world.

I exist.

Creativity constantly demanding a greater price than I could settle, to appease the ever-growing sense of dread.

Yet I dance. Endlessly in her palms. Satisfying her every desire. A life no better than a fool’s. I fear I’ve fallen in love with dancing just to see her smile one more time.

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Time ticks as the cell walls close in on me,
The world hums away behind a window no larger than fist.
I stand as more a myth than a man,
Yet been ensnared by the mystery of her.

There are no walls are enough to keep me from her,
Her sultry whispers beckon me closer.
The chase, the thrill of something greater hums, a wildfire in my veins,

A Polaris of sorts; the white in her smile,
guiding me north through the dark.
She is dossier and dream,
lock and key, riddle and answer.
Every step toward her reveals nothing,
yet nothing has ever felt more real.
I pursue not her form,
but the dream she casts upon the dark.

I chase not to capture,
But to be undone.
For the mission is her,
and she is the mission.
A phantom I will spend my life pursuing,
knowing the pursuit is the only truth.

Every Relationship is built on hate. Counterintuitive, I know but stick with me. You look in your partners eyes and swear you love every corner of them, but even in your mouth the words feel hollow. Allow me to show you the perspective you refuse to take note of.

We build temples to love one another. Worshipping each other at the altar of our hearts, that’s where the burning begins. The fierce desire that sears through flesh. Then you start to feel it, the itch you can’t scratch, roaring from the corners of your mind you ignored. This is where you start to realize we build relationships on our pain.

It starts small. Fights over nothing everyone apologizes for; conversations that end with “it’s fine” when it isn’t, promises to change that expire by morning. Then it crescendos and someone disconnects. The other, in an attempt to heal the relationship becomes vulnerable.

To be vulnerable is to be weak. We fumble blindly in darkness, reaching for scars on our backs, phantom pain flaring from words unspoken by our partners. The pain gets real when the silences let you know you showed too much and you can’t take it back. I remember how I felt the first time it happened, I saw my reflection in her eyes, felt her disgust for showing more than I was permitted. In that moment I became ugly and her gaze became my truth. She was my first lover.

I’m not just a victim; I’m a victim and an arbiter. Since then, I found myself staring at others through her eyes. I met another; a melancholic, she made a habit of breaking down to tears in front of me. I tried to listen, tried to empathize. But soon found myself disconnecting and as my first lover did, I began to see the person before me as an ugly sight.

Then there was another. One who called me out. Accusing me of seeing the world through the eyes of my first lover. Acting on the pain I could feel but I couldn’t explain. Searching to be seen and understood, I lashed out and she hugged me, knowing I was in pain I didn’t understand at the time.

I had begun to hate myself and her, my first lover. She taught me to see the world as a festering wound, yearning for love, yet recoiling from weakness. To her, I say I hope someone loves you the way I never could. And to me, I say, “Weakness is beautiful, let us love beyond all capacity our pain.”

My first taught me to understand, the melancholic taught me to feel, and the accuser taught me to accept.

And just like that I learned to love, by finally seeing the world through my eyes.

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I refused to listen to my gut. That’s it, I could end here. A perfect summarization of all our troubles, we refuse to listen to our internal sense of reason. Sometimes it’s almost comical how we feel better than those that have fallen prey to their base desires, lost all sense of reason. I am no better, I just use better vocabulary.

I strategize my downfall so meticulously I’m often surprised. The amount of time spent planning an endeavour I’m a hundred percent convinced will fail, yet I press on because I pursued a feeling that made zero sense yet so much sense to me.

It happens so many times I’m honestly embarrassed. I make a mistake which I very well know will not have a good ending, but curiosity called and who am I but a valiant knight who answers. And precisely because of this I’ve got to experience so many adventures, every single one more exciting than the last. It’s like I actively go seeking for trouble just because I want adventure and honestly, it doesn’t sound so bad.

Now lemme preface this, I’m not giving you a nod to chase some of your self-destructive behaviours. Not really. What I am saying is some of your self-destructive behaviours will give you the greatest of adventures in your life. It’s an interesting take we know to be instinctively true whether we like it or not. People go to such lengths to restrain themselves, but honestly, what are humans but complex stories to tell. Even in days of old, people would gather around campfires, singing and sharing stories, drawing stories of their adventures in caves; all which mostly stemmed from bad decisions. All I’m preaching here is this: the choice lies in your hands; your greatest adventures await.

To those that are already on their path to a bad decision. She might be the best memory you ever had. So why wait; send that risky text, confess to your crush, go on that adventure you’ve been waiting a lifetime for, write that book. That last bit was for myself; I’ve sat procrastinating on a short story I’m writing for God knows how long. Indulge yourself but be cautious, don’t do it because some random writer online told you to, but do it because you can’t bear but to.

Life is a game of chance; you never know what will happen till you play.

• Oscar Wilde:
  “I can resist everything except temptation.”

• Fyodor Dostoevsky:
  “The darker the night, the brighter the stars.”

• Charles Bukowski:
  “Find what you love and let it kill you.”

• Paul to the Romans:

  “I do not understand what I do, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”

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A promise, forged in blood and steel. To honor ourselves as brothers. Standing side by side facing whatever may come. A family grafted from different ethnicities, ideologies and ambitions. Yet we met on the path to greatness.

I have brothers from different walks of life with different goals. For we decided to stick together, amidst our vast differences. Bound by a shared vision, an idea we want to forge, crafted in the heat of our failures yet we remain steeled on our agenda.

We give grace to those who fail and pull up the brother that loses his way. Because that's what it means to be a brother, to be with my chosen, until the very end.

We are human, a brother is allowed to make mistakes, he's allowed to be a fool for a time. Because it's necessary for growth, if you notice a brother falling into stupor and he resists your attempts to restore him to the glory he was in, trust in the man you once knew and watch from the sidelines, when he calls for you, help him stand, that's what brotherhood means.

We strive for things greater than ourselves. Money is one aim, but the ambition reaches further. For now, form is irrelevant, momentum is everything. The ambition lives in us, beating toward a better tomorrow.

We live for ourselves and more. We forge the path for those to come and on the promise of those that came before us. We have a duty to those who came before us to be better than them, correcting their flaws. Those before us are indeed full of flaws but nonetheless are our mentors to traverse life. Then there’s the duty to those behind us, to protect and forge them into men.

I want to create. There’s nothing existential to it really, it’s more of a burning desire that keeps on growing and those I’m surrounded by brothers of the same mind. We want more than the world can offer; we want to warp the world how we see it. For those who do not have it, it’s a desire I cannot explain because it lies beyond myself. I am merely a stitch in the fabric of polymaths long before me.

Be the captain of your soul, forge the life you want and do it with a family, with a band of brothers. There is nothing more idyllic than a group of people chasing a dream far beyond them, with each other to fuel his delusion. A ring of brotherhood, curved back onto itself like an ouroboros, holding its own beginning.

So, we forge a promise, in steel and blood. To bear the pains of one another. To lift our brothers, past and future, and to pursue our dreams without end. We wear rings to signify our devotion to the cause, a noose around our heart propelling us to greatness, so that even when we are apart, we look to these rings to remember the promise.

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‘The world is your oyster,’ after I watched Dead Poets Society, the phrase kept on ringing in my head, echoing continuously to find its worth. Funny enough the phrase was derived by Shakespeare in one of his plays. What it essentially meant was inside an oyster there could be a pearl waiting, so force it open with all your might and maybe one day it just might. The suggestion here is the world was waiting for your debut as an artist, by a series of works so good they put you on the map. The definition exactly where the first hurdle is.

What does good really mean. I don’t mean in some weird philosophical sense, in a simple definition, what is good to people. Dictionary definitions were annoying me, so I’m not going to put any of them here but put simply per context, the definition depends on the engagement and accolades by people that view your work. It gets trickier when people have to define what’s good to them on an individual basis. This circles back to the problem of appealing for views, but just maybe, it doesn’t have to.

The Rise of Brainrot and Playboi Carti. Might dedicate a whole series of articles to this just because he’s one of my favorite artistes. Brain rot is probably the biggest creativity loophole to exist, every single generation has had its form of brainrot. As a proud brainrot enthusiast, I like to believe this chaos isn’t accidental. That it’s the result of years of people engineering content, testing boundaries, tweaking delivery, until they finally cracked the code of public attention. I want to believe it’s intentional. Strategic. Artful in its own absurd way. Because the alternative, sheer dumb luck, is way less interesting.

Go Big or Go Home. Imagine being so good, continents seek you out when you go silent, yeah me neither I can’t put my face on that tag. It’s a little too intangible at the moment. So here’s an easier ask.

Be so good you can get a generation hung on Brainrot. In a generation where Brainrot is the worldwide sensation, your chances of being noticed are the highest they’ve ever been in human history. That’s because it’s fun, it’s fun to create and fun to watch. The perfect middle ground of creativity and humor. Take the gamble, craft something so good, you can’t be ignored.

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Tabula Rasa sounds fancy till it’s you facing a blank page. The fear of a blank page is recorded as one of the most ancient fears to exist, so apparently, I’m not alone. Many others before me sat before a blank page scratching their hair out, figuring which preposition to place where. It’s comical to think Shakespeare or Homer would also be up at 1am adjusting sentence length and also having eureka moments like us. So, fired up by this, I pick up my pen, write my soul out and present it.

“I love your work it has potential,” That certainly wasn’t the reaction I was expecting for my first Magnum Opus, but regardless I swallowed my complaint. I wrote another then some more and at some point, I realized I had become bitter because no matter how I strived, I realized I wasn’t close to being good enough. Now, this isn’t some sob story with a dramatic end, no, rather it’s more like maths. Deep rooted cultural training to seek approval plus a vast chasm of potential that I could seemingly never overcome? You don’t need a calculator to know there’s no immediate happy ending. Add to that I started leaving drawings and writings unfinished, since they would never be good anyway and slowly, I became a chronic procrastinator. Slowly, I started to think fighting against this tide would be the world’s greatest comedy, so I stopped trying.

Then I had a eureka moment, I used to think this was only for geniuses and people of renowned work. The first eureka moment is of little import to the story, we could hash over it another time, but after this one several others followed, in different forms. From something as little as the chiming of a bell to the feeling of being seen by another, these moments begun to trigger something in me, I begun to have ideas again. I began to dream.

No one can create like you. It seems like a childish take really, too simple to have any worth, but the more I dug into it the more I realized that simplicity is exactly what makes it true. No one else has your unique blend of tastes, fears, failures and wins, contradictions, traits mostly undesirable to you, yet exactly what makes you desirable to others. That fact you, in all your entirety will never again occur under the sun changed how I saw my work. I saw it less like an art exhibition to people and more of an understanding of the ever-growing landscape of me. But sometimes, I slip up, thinking more on what will be perceived but I don’t blame myself, 23 years of conditioning can’t be changed overnight, so in those instances I’m gentle with myself, and coddle myself like I would my child, because at the end of the day what are we but children learning to love.

Life is an Infinite Jest, chaotic, absurd, layered with meaning in contradictions if you’re playful enough to look, (an amazing book you should check out). Slowly identity of a jester begun to take shape in my subconscious, infinite realm of possibilities under the identity of freedom and the refusal to be boxed in by seriousness, fear, or expectation. Behind the humour is awareness. Behind the jokes is truth. And behind the mask is someone finally choosing to live unrestrained. And to me that is the highest form of a Magnum Opus, the point where you yourself become the work of art.

Polymathy is a Philosophy of life. Let’s jest creatively together

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