One of the many things I have noticed about social media today is how much labels are flying around. So many labels, so many 'types' and 'cores'. People slap a label onto literally anything instead of trying to understand or explain a complicated emotion, person or situation.

"He's a narcissist"

"She's toxic"

"That's avoidant attachment"

"He's am empath"

"That's gaslighting"

There are more than enough labels going around these days and it's not like they are essentially bad or anything. Some of these concepts are genuinely useful because they are aimed at understanding people better. They give us a sort of vocabulary for our different experiences and make them easier to communicate and they also encourage self reflection. The issue is that understanding people has now become solely dependent on categorizing them.

Once we label a person we begin to see them as that label. Labelling distorts our vision of that person because we begin to see them over a certain veil and we interpret their actions through that veil which leads us to making an inaccurate assessment and judgement of that person. A label then stops being a tool for understanding. Rather, it becomes a conclusion about a person's character.

I agree and have said and repeated countless times that humans are very complex beings. And for a group that is so complex we really love to put everything in neat boxes. We love to group and categorise which is obviously a good thing but the problem is that a lot of us have adopted a black-and-white way of thinking. It's either something or someone is this or they're that.

And of course, social media has some how found a way to worsen this because now, there seems to be a ready-made category for any human experience and action.

Social media uses psychological vocabulary in a way that psychology doesn't. That is, in a careless way without much context and often times this is not even a conscious thing. We hear words like narcissist, people pleaser, toxic, empath, avoidant, gaslighter and so many others. Now, I'm not saying that every person that has been labelled as such has definitely been mislabelled, my point is that a lot of us on social media use these words as a sort of guide to our personalities and often times our judgements are wrong.

What I find more disturbing are the mental health related labels that people smack unto themselves as though they are pimple patches. Such as Autism, OCD, Bipolar, Depressed, anxious, traumatized, PTSD and neurodivergent among others. These are actual clinical terms which we use so loosely that we end up erasing the complexity and the seriousness of the conditions they describe.

Experiencing anxiety isn't automatically the same thing as having an anxiety disorder. Being very organized doesn't mean someone has OCD, feeling unusually energetic doesn't automatically mean you are bipolar, and having a bad experience doesn't automatically mean you have PTSD.

The casual use of these terms sometimes distorts people's understanding of what these conditions actually involve. If “OCD” becomes synonymous with liking things neat, people might end up walking away with a complete misunderstanding of OCD. Autistic has become internet shorthand for being socially awkward or really interested in something, and this flattens the social experiences of autistic people into no more than quirky stereotypes.

The irony of it all is that we claim to be increasing mental health awareness. We're becoming more educated on mental health, yet we're also stripping the terminology of context that gives it meaning.

The reason I think we're facing this problem is because of how the algorithm rewards short form of content. It's kind of hard to expect complexity from a video that only lasts fifteen seconds. Most of the content on social media are short and easy for immediate understanding.

It's much easier to spend a minute on a video with the caption "5 signs you're an avoidant" than to read a nuanced essay or discussion on attachment and individual differences.

This leads to a way of thinking that generalises opinions and makes us see things as either black or white. Either good or bad, either healthy or toxic, either victim or culprit. And the moment we label people as anything we start to see them as that thing and treat them in a certain manner. Once a person's label is repeated to them and widespread enough, they start to believe it themselves and they begin to act in that way, thereby becoming to some extent, the very label they were described with.

It's harder to get rid of labels these days because once we label a person or even ourselves, we start to interpret every action and reaction through that lens and with how close social media is, we are able to find contents that justify our judgements and instead of understanding the person, we give them a verdict and build a case against them.

Now, what was supposed to help us understand each other better has become what we use to judge each other faster and often times, these judgements become absolute.

I am not condemning labels or people who use labels on themselves or on others because I must admit that I am one of those people as well. What I am trying to say is that Human beings are complex and we need a nuanced way of thinking of and interpreting them.

A person can behave selfishly without being a selfish person.

Someone can withdraw without being avoidant.

Someone can seek reassurance without having some deep attachment problems.

Someone can make a decision without revealing their fundamental character.

We aren't collections of traits operating independently. We're shaped by our society, circumstances, relationships, history, moods, beliefs, fears, habits, and context that we sometimes dismiss. Of course, that doesn't mean harmful behaviour should be excused.

We just need to learn to come to terms with ambiguity. We don't know everything and we don't know what really goes on in people's hearts and minds. We always want certainty because certainty is easier to understand and come to terms with, which is why we keep on categorizing people and their behaviours and emotions because labels make everything seem neater.

I think that to understand people and ourselves, we need to become comfortable with the fact that humans are so complex that we cannot always be neatly understood.

I don't really know for sure how to put my thoughts into words but I'll try my best.

It is something that I have thought about a lot. A question that to me, doesn't seem to have a clear and satisfactory answer.

Am I navigating life with a compass made by some one else?

From the moment I was born, from the moment we were all born, we were handed maps before we could draw our own. Parents tell us what is good or bad, schools and societies decide what success looks like, cultures, friends, social settings and what we grow up hearing or seeing constantly all have an influence.

"Just be yourself"

We hear this all the time but who exactly are we?

We are told to listen to our hearts, listen to our inner selves, to not conform to societal standards, to embrace our originality and individuality. But who exactly are we?

If you've spent your entire life learning what is admirable, shameful, beautiful, worthwhile, respectable, normal, sinful, successful, then those things don't sit outside you. They become how you perceive the world.

Sometimes these things are values we grew up with, values fed into us before we could even taste them, other times they are the things we grow up to get drawn to. Because of friends, family, relatives, peers, and media influence.

The former is like our native language; we grow up hearing it and it becomes what we communicate with. We don't really give it much thought, we don't translate every sentence, we think in that language and we have gotten so used to it that when asked who we are we can't really imagine answering that without the answer including some traces of that language...even if it's a very slight trace.

The latter on the other hand is like a new language, like a formal language or the language we can easily communicate with everyone through it. We have to learn it and it seems like an independent decision that came from us and our own independent and personal desire to learn it, but is it really? Or are we just learning to fit in? To remain connected. To communicate. And at some point we end up using it so much that we either doubt our native language or discard it completely.

This is just me pouring my thoughts so I don't know if you understand what I'm saying.

I don't think "finding yourself" is the best metaphor to go about this.

It's more like digging deep into your thoughts, opinions and feelings while brushing away assumptions and asking yourself "is this mine or did someone place it there? Or did I place it there because I saw someone who had it placed in them as well?"

Sometimes the answers are unclear, other times they are just uncomfortable because the things you discover are both yours and inherited. I think it's kind of like archeology. I don't know the best way to explain it though.

I think of this a lot, maybe I genuinely value somethings because everyone else does. Be it my parents, friends, relatives, society, I don't know. But does me giving value to education just because my parents do make education any less valuable? Does me valuing gold and silver because society does make them any less valuable? I don't think so.

The question is less about where the idea came from because everything comes from somewhere. I still am not sure what the better question should be.

But how does one even find themselves at all? Honestly, it's not easy at all. If you've lived by a certain map your entire life, it's hard to decide to draft your own. It's like deciding not to work with the atlas. You can decide where not to go, you might decide where you want to go but the map remains. Drawn by people you probably don't even realise matter so much.

I don't think we can ever throw the atlas away. It has already taught us where the mountains and oceans are, where people before us found a place to live or where they got lost.

Sometimes a single passing comment from a teacher, a cousin, a stranger online, or a friend can become part of the map you carry for years without remembering who it was that sketched it.

The solution might seem simple to some people. Just personalise the map, just write in the margins and scribble where you wish to. Just use some stickers and glitter and make it about you. Maybe that's what we're all doing. We borrow maps, lose our way, scribble in the margins, erase a few things, add a few other things and pass the atlas on to someone else, hoping we've made it little more truthful than it was when we received it.

We can scribble in the margins but at the end of the day the map is not drawn by us. It is not truly ours, is it? We can edit, we can draw over but we can't cancel it. We can't decide to change the position of Ethiopia or make Antarctica a tropical place. We can wish it was, we can cover it with paint or draw over it with charcoal. But it's still there. We cannot escape the inheritance. Some things seem like the rational choice, like common sense but they're not as black and white as we think they are.

There are parts of us that become so foundational that we can't just step outside them. Our first language shapes how we think. Our childhood shapes what feels safe. our culture gives us traditions before it gives us reasons. Even when you reject some things, you're rejecting them from within the framework that was built with their help.

There are things we just cannot cancel. We can try to change them or cover them up but they will remain. We don't choose where the mountains are. We choose whether to climb them or avoid them or spend our whole lives complaining they exist.

There are things you will always carry. The child I was doesn't disappear because I now find her embarrassing. The people who loved me, hurt me, taught me, disappointed me... they remain pencilled into who I am.

And it makes me raise a question about originality. Can a person be completely original? I'm not convinced we can. I think we are made entirely of borrowed pieces but never before was anyone else assembled in the same way as we are. It holds on to our uniqueness while still pinning a question mark on our originality. But I still wonder how different uniqueness is from originality?

And that question makes me question the question mark I placed on our originality in the first place. Because if originality means being completely free of influence, then perhaps no human being is original, yet we know that we are not unoriginal.

So I wonder, what if originality isn't the absence of influence but how it is transformed from influence into something unique?

Like, a writer doesn't create new words yet they can create something original because they arrange preexisting words in a way no one has before.

To be honest, this is a very broad topic and I do not have enough philosophical knowledge or experience to really dive into it.

Some philosophers would argue that even originality is an illusion. Every new idea is just old ideas rearranged. If they're right, then originality is simply uniqueness viewed through a different lens. It is deeply unsettling the more you think of it.

I did go on Google though and ChatGPT (please don't call me out). And i learnt something interesting.

Nietzsche didn't deny originality, but he distrusted the idea of people imagining themselves as completely self-made. He thought we inherit values, language morality, instincts. The challenge is not escaping them but overcoming and transforming them. In a sense, originality becomes self-overcoming, not creation from nothing.

Martin Heidegger argued that we're "thrown" into a world we didn't choose. We don't choose our language, century, family, or culture. Those aren't optional starting conditions. Authenticity isn't pretending you escaped them. It's taking responsibility for how you exist within them.

There was a lot more of these but I don't really care enough to type them out. What I do see from the little I read is that these philosophers are on the same footing when it comes to their suspicion that humans exaggerate how independent they are...which if you ask me is quite true on many terms.

We didn't invent ourselves, we didn't invent our languages and the world we live in. We did not invent any of these yet we are all experiencing it in very different ways. Again, I must remind you that I am just pouring my thoughts into this writing so it may seem veryyyyy confused and confusing.

I don't know to be honest. This is a very broad topic and the more you think of it the broader it becomes.

The twenty-ninth day feels very misplaced. It feels like a room filled with things that almost meant everything. Like memories that could have been better or moments that could have lasted longer. Those conversations that were interrupted by sleep and letters that were rewritten so many times that they ended up under mattresses— never sent.

The twenty-ninth day feels like that day reserved for this kind of silence. The kind that comes with the embarrassment of arriving late to a beautiful conversation after it has ended. You can still see hints of laughter on faces and the glint of understanding in eyes. You can still hear the echoes but they do not ask anything of you.

The twenty-ninth day arrives carrying the weight of the days before it. It carries the grief they refuse to associate themselves with. It holds memorials for those sad moments, not the ones that ended but the ones that continued without ever becoming what they were meant to become. The twenty-ninth day seems to understand these moments. Because no other day does.

Morning comes. Trees do not apologise for being green. Birds continue to flap their wings, worms wiggle beneath our feet and somewhere someone laughs unaware that they are interrupting a quiet mourning.

Not what I do when longing mounts,

But poetry- about love that counts.

I want to write about nature,

I want to write about oceans and seas,

I want to write about mountains and trees,

I want to write about this beauty I see.

I want to write about the dappled sunlight filtering through trees,

I want to write about the wind and honeybees,

I want to write about bustling streets,

About lanterns and faded ink.

I don’t want to write about you

Or how your words feel like dew,

How your voice sounds like water crashing into itself,

Your thoughts like the thin veil of clouds over the moon.

I want to write about stars not how your eyes sparkle,

I want to write about wasps not how my heart tingles,

I want to paint nature on my books

Not a mirage that will forever be untrue

I want to write about love that has no relation to me and you.

I want to stain my pages with ink

Not with blood from a heart that bleeds

I want my words to recollect memories of rain

Not of moments enveloped in pain

I want my poems to rhyme

I want every stanza to be sublime

But what matters is not my aim

Because my pen will always bend to write your name.

­-Hauwa

You know, sometimes I wonder how much of me is as unadulterated as I claim. I am sincere with my feelings. When I care, I care genuinely. Most of the time, I do things because I genuinely love people, but sometimes it feels like I do them to make sure I'm still needed. Not in a transactional sense, no. I don't keep scores and I definitely don't expect any repayment. I just need to make sure I'm useful enough to not be abandoned.

I can't expect anyone to chose me when I don't benefit them in any way. How can I crave being the one some one chooses if I'm not good enough to be on the list of options?

I've been called nice for basically my entire life. People have called me sweet and kind and thoughtful far more than I deserve. Every time I get called anything like that, I feel extremely guilty. Because I know I'm neither nice nor sweet, I just have this fear of being abandoned or disliked.

A lot of my friends say their favourite thing about me is how my niceness never dims no matter how long it's been, that I greet them with the same warmth and enthusiasm no matter how long it's been. They say I remain sweet and supportive while asking for nothing in return.

They don't know, do they?

They see consistency where I see maintenance.

They don't know that I remain consistent with my services in order to guarantee their presence. They don't see how my acts of devotion are nothing more than schemes which carried deep within them the desire to be chosen... not applauded, not praised, not worshipped. No, chosen.

I have very unreasonable fears. I don't just worry about losing people, I anticipate it. I wait to be abandoned because I know my efforts have never been, and never will be, enough. I mourn conversations before they end, I force myself to learn to sit in their absence even before they approach the door, I have watched people leave me so many times in my head that I assume they are fed up with me even when they just needed space.

So I prepare in advance. I enjoy the little things, replay the little moments, store the screenshots, write about the feelings, I cherish the memories because I believe that the moments are minutes away from expiration.

I predict my fall, hoping that it would somehow soften the impact.

It's like knowing I'll be stabbed and convincing myself that if I relax my muscles before the blade enters, the wound won't be as deep.

Maybe that's true.

Maybe it isn't.

Either way, I've still been stabbed.

I keep grieving losses that have not yet happened, I imagine how hurtful words that have not yet been uttered will feel, I see people leaving even before they pack their bags, and I rehearse my pleas before they actually leave.

Then one day, they actually leave, and somehow, it still hurts.

All that preparation, all those rehearsals and I'm still not prepared. It feels like I've lost them twice, and it hurts twice as much.

Now, Missy is twenty-one years old and she works as a waitress in a restaurant. The restaurant is small and gets quite suffocating on Saturday evenings when a lot of customers come over. Mr. Jose, does not make these evenings any easier for her. With all is nagging and yelling, and winking and touching. Missy hates noise and values her personal space but Mr. Jose’s fifty years old vocal chords and roaming hands do not understand that. Neither does Hugo.

Hugo is who Missy is in a relationship with, she prefers that phrase to the more common term ‘dating’. They met first on one of those Saturday evenings, right after an encounter with Mr. Jose. Hugo had ordered a bottle of apple juice and he asked for a glass to drink it with. ‘Fancy’, she had thought. He took the glass without saying anything but thank you yet she knew he found her attractive.

She always knows when someone finds her attractive, like when back at school she knew the top student liked the way she smiled, and when the senior Dave said she was flat-chested to the entire football team which led to her objectification in the first term of Grade 10, but she knew the only reason he did that was because she did not allow him to touch when he tried, and Mr. Jose when he held unto her hand for too long after their handshake when she got the waitressing job. She felt embarrassed on is behalf and wondered why his name wasn’t spelt the way it sounded- Hozei.

And Hugo when he started asking her questions about herself. Hugo seemed like someone that would be quite stressful so she tried to shut him off before things got far but he did not take the hint very well. Eventually, she yielded because he wasn’t so bad and he was always sweet to her but he brought with him presents every time they met, every time, and they met every day. That sounds like such an amazing thing to experience unless you’re Missy who really needs her space to breathe. Her work place did not really provide that space and Hugo was taking up the little space she had outside of work, she did not like that one bit.

So, she talked to him about it and he sounded like he understood but nothing changed. If anything, things felt even more suffocating. With the Saturday evenings, Mr. Jose’s hands, the little children that lived in the next room to her little apartment and the cat-calling men at midnight, Missy became even more sensitive to every stimulus and the voices in her head seemed to start talking again. That was when she snapped at Hugo and told him if he was going to be a space invader despite all she was going through, the relationship was not going to work out. Hugo seemed to understand for some time and he stayed away, showing up only when he had to and at the right time with the right intervals in between. The voices in her head calmed and she loved Hugo more than ever.

But then he came over to the restaurant on a Friday night when Mr. Jose was not at work, he was probably at home, eating dinner with his family, loving them, smiling at them, kissing his wife like she was the only woman in his life, touching her the way he did with Missy. Hugo was in high spirits and when he hugged her, he swept her off the ground and kissed her cheek. She asked what he was so happy about and he said to her

“You know how you told me how much you hate this job and how loud your apartment is and how tired you always are from working and how there’s never enough space anywhere?”

“Yeah” she nodded

“Well I have a solution to all those things!”

“You do?” she gasped, feeling joy and anticipation rising from her feet.

“Yes! Why don’t you move in with me?” he announced, making her joy disappear and an immediate rush of anger course through her veins.

He just did not understand her, not at all and it angered her. She was an extremely sensitive and irritable person; how did Hugo not get that by now?

Moving in with Hugo was something she considered often whenever she thought about their relationship and the possibility of them getting married. She dreaded it, not the marriage bit but the living together bit. Because she knew how Hugo could be, all mushy and touchy and wanting to do everything together. She knew it was something she just could not do. The last time they slept together at his house, she spent the night and the sound of his breathing made her want to strangle him. The voices were so loud and the anger she felt then was so real, so dangerous, so familiar that it truly scared her. It made her aware of something very dark that resided in her and she knew that moving in with Hugo could unleash that darkness.

So, she told Hugo she wasn’t going to move in with him and he tried to convince her and she tried to make him understand but he did not. It felt like she was talking to a brick wall and that angered her so much that she let all hell loose on him, she spewed venom without thinking a word through and it wasn’t after the words “It’s not even like I love you or like we’re really together so stop talking like you know what’s best for me” that she realised her lips were moving and his ears were working.

He got so mad and he yelled about how he was just worried about her and how he knew she would enjoy living together if she just gave it a chance. That convinced her he was not listening to her at all, he never was and never would. She told him to leave because she knew a second more with him and she would have snapped his neck in half- he breathed even louder when he was worked up and it made her feel like she was going insane. The people in the restaurant could hear them, she only realised this when she walked back to the kitchen and was asked by another waitress if everything was okay.

Missy did not think the fight affected her at all. In fact, she was convinced she was happier without Hugo there to breathe too hard, talk too much or feel too warm. For the first week, she felt okay, splendid even until she began to hear the voices again. They came first as whispers then by the third week, they were even louder than the kids next door.

Her head throbbed, her skin crawled and existence itself felt like the heaviest burden and the greatest punishment. Every light was too bright, every sound was too loud, even the wind blowing felt like pollution. Taking deep breaths did not work, neither did taking a walk or meditating, not even heroine could silence those screams.

It was the night before her birthday that she heard a loud knock on her door. When she found the strength to open it, she found Hugo by the door with a huge basket of gifts… that alone took away two-thirds of her patience. The remaining one-third was what he used to play jump rope with as he begged her to move in with him giving her a lot of reasons, making a lot of promises she knew he would not keep to, telling her how much he loved her. She wanted to hear him out but she was too distracted and enraged by how loud and annoying his whisper was, how her stupid neighbour’s Air Conditioner hummed too loud, how the light from the hallway outside seeping into her room was too bright and how the jazz music from the Jazz Bar two buildings away was terribly invasive.

“Please leave, Hugo” she managed to say when she felt her anger rising and the voices getting louder. But of course, he did not listen. So, she picked up the bread knife she used to butter a slice of bread earlier and drove it into his neck. The choking sounds he made were too vulgar and irritating so she twisted the blade deeper and deeper, his blood warm on her hand. He slumped with a loud thud and she stood above him, staring down at his body. The room was dark, lit only by the light from the hallway and in that light she saw his face quiet for the first time… lifeless as well.

She felt relief first and the voices even calmed until she felt regret and confusion and the voices rose, raging. She fell to the ground beside him, touched his face, shook his body but he did not rise. She began to cry, she began to wonder how she could have done such a thing and what she was going to do next. How could she have killed Hugo, the man she loved? She held her head and hit her ears, trying to keep the voices out. She could not give a name to what she was feeling but it felt incredibly familiar, something she had felt before… a lot of times. Now, the voices in her head also began to sound familiar, the screams feeling closer than she knew they were.

Missy was eight years old when she killed her brother; he was too invasive, twelve when she killed her father; he liked to touch in all the wrong places, fifteen when she killed her best friend; she talked too much, sixteen when she killed her mother; she thought she knew what was best for Missy better than Missy did, and seventeen when she killed her first boyfriend; he was a space invader who liked to kiss a lot.

Now, Missy is twenty-one years old and she is sitting in a pool of blood of the man she was with, the man whom she killed. And the voices are loud but she doesn’t just hear them now, she listens. The screams also got louder, now Hugo’s choking joins the band and the music is so good that she lays her head on his chest and falls asleep.

Mr. Jose is next.

And every time I'm on my knees, there's a grave beside me

And sometimes it speaks, saying exactly what I need

The love I deserve is what has always come to find me.

I am the love I give, not the love I receive

Now it's me filtering basic words through an unfaithful sieve

And at twinkling stars, through a blurred telescope, I peep

And before encrypted paper mache, there I kneel

I am the love I give, not the love I receive

But I do not always know what I give, and I cannot do justice to what I receive

"To ache is to love and to ache is to be loved"

I am comforted knowing my pain translates to something so beautiful

So, when my veins run dry, and you find me in a grave someday beside a painting

Take it to a museum, place it high on a pedestal, so everyone knows how much I've loved and how much I have been loved.

There's colour in July

No it's not because it's my birth month

There's colour in July and

I think it's blue like the sky

There's lots of things in July.

There's balloons, there's cake, there's candles and wishes

Mhmm but there's that in every month

But it's not like July, is it?

There's something else in July

There's something there

Something I have no name for

Is it an animal?

I want to say bunnies but I have a feeling it's a beaver

July is a beaver, or a white goat with a yellow bow on it's left horn.

But it's not an animal

Is it a whether?

I don't know much about whether so it's got to be a beautiful summer day

With popsicles and an iPhone 8

"Rio de janeiro" spread over every pic

But it's not a whether either!

Oh yes, it's a person.

I don't know much about people.

Even though I'm a person- barely, that is.

July is the social butterfly, isn't he?

Yes, he's a he.

He knows everyone, he smiles, he laughs, he swallows his anger and disappointment. In fact, disappointment doesn't even make him flinch, he's used to it. He is one himself.

July is nice to everyone and very accommodating. It's always so crowded because he can't say no.

"I want my birthday in july" "I also want my birthday in july"

Okay okay, everyone gets what they want with July.

Now July is strained being the birthday month for everyone and he's tired.

But he can't say so.

Because he's July, for God's sake.

July should not snap or hold grudges.

July should smile, and be nice and be polite and understanding because that's just what he does.

And he doesn't mind, he can't disappoint them...he's their birthday month!

No, July can't be withdrawn, July can't say anything about July because he's the birthday month.

The birthday month. The birthday month. The birthday month.

Now, July doesn't know who he is.

He's holding a lot of birthdays together, maybe he should let some go.

But that would disappoint them and that would be too mean, too unlike him, nobody is going to like that July.

Besides, it's not their fault. It's his. He said yes to being the birthday month, no one forced him.

So July keeps on being July because everyone needs a July.

Hm, I don't think that was it.

No, it's a fruit! And July is a grape because i love grapes 🩷

I think I've run out of my laughter pack

It's empty and it's sagging
Right there, below my knee
I'm walking like it's worship
My reward is in these wounds that bleed

My pack of laughter
Of small smiles, of little joys
My sack of laughter
I string around my tired neck

I walk on like it's worship
My tired legs creaking
I breathe through lungs that are lacking
As my caloused fingers become the hook I knit my death cloth with


My sack has emptied
yet it remains heavier than ever
As it becomes the nouse around my neck
will I be happier than ever? 
  
                                                      - -Hauwa.

Now out of no where, my chest is heavy.

I can hear my father's snores from his room– yes, it's that bad.

Crickets are chirping, the lights are off and as I adjust my position on the bed, it creaks as though acknowledging the weight on my chest.

It's 22:53 now,

An hour has passed since I sent a reply

Isn't it crazy how you text me first and then leave me to carry the weight of our conversation?

I'm sure it's amusing as hell knowing that I'll reply the minute you send a text.

Oh how amusing it must be!

It's 22:56

I'm not sleepy yet

I wonder if there's someone out there thinking these same thoughts about me

I hope not

But is there really much I can do?

Sometimes some things are genuinely unintentional.

Other times though, they feel extremely so.

It's 22:58

To be honest, I don't even know what the hell this is about.

Sometimes I gaslight myself into believing or accepting some things

I don't know anymore

I don't know myself anymore.

It's 23:00

A bit late, isn't it?

He wants to start reading and I recommended a book.

He ignored my recommendation

I hate myself.

Goodbye.

"For you, I would"

Words that make me fold even though I've never heard them.

Words that make me cringe because I know that for you, I truly would.

"For you, I would"

I would venture into a terrifying adventure for an uncertain encounter with your calming smile

I would learn to fly if I ever saw your silhouette in the sky

I would be delighted to fall if it is you I drown for

These are things I choose to do for you, not a right.

For you, I would

But would you?

I don't ask for much— how can I?

You give me whatever you feel like because you don't owe me anything

Not your attention, not your accountability, not your feelings

And you said it, didn't you?

You feel nothing at all. It was supposed to be nice, you were trying to 'make me feel better'.

Do you not see or are you intentionally blinded to the light of my profound infatuation?

Nothing will not cut it, Nothing is not what I want

Yet you give it to me without fail as if knowing that it is exactly what I need.

For you I would

I would crave for everything but never expect it

I will take nothing because it's what you offer

I will build my walls from what you give and set my boundaries. They'd be solidly made from nothing

I will feed my delusions with nothing

I will stay for nothing

Because nothing is what you give

And nothing is what I need

And this knot in my chest is what I signed up for

This pain of uncertain certainty is what I deserve.

For you I would

And the cruelest part is that I put everything on the line

Praying gently that that would stop you from snapping it

I held on so tight to something that was never mine

With hope that you would reach out to me if this love never dies

I gave everything to ensure I'd never lose you

And you gave nothing because it was a possibility you never had to fear.

Don't fade just yet

I have no proof of what we shared

If I forget you, my conscience will be smeared.

Hold on sweet, love

With your hands in the air

Your laughter that kisses the sunsets

And those eyes that never once betrayed you

Hold on, sweet love

Come, tell me what's wrong

This time, I'll ask and I won't wait for you to open up

I will visit and knock every day on your door

I will go to the shops and I will click the photographs

I will initiate the hugs and I will host the fun

I will be there to encourage you, to discipline you

I will be there to stand between you and it all

I will actually hold your hands and not just compliment them

I will hold you longer after hugs and I will stare longer at your face

I will commit your voice to memory so that it never fades

So hold on, sweet love

Before they take you away

I want to be there even if it shatters everything in me

Hold my hand, let's be scared together

Let me feel the pain of losing you deeper

Let me deserve this grief.

Hold on, sweet love

Or maybe never go at all

So we can talk about boys and 'mp'

So we can talk about jail when we're 20

So we can talk about kids when were 30

And retirement at sixty-three

Hold on, sweet love

And never go at all

Make me me again

A stranger to this grief.

Am I sad because you like someone else? But I knew this all along. Am I sad because you don't like me back? But this is exactly what I prayed for. Am I sad because I still like you? But I don't! Am I sad because I still care?

Yes. Because I care, I care a lot. I care so much it feels like a hand is twisting through my guts and yanking at my intestines. I care and that makes everything I've told myself and proved to myself wrong. It makes me a liar, it makes my heart a confused liar. It makes me a fool and I hate that.

It makes me a fool. It makes me a coward. It makes my heart spineless. I can't cry because that makes everything true. But I have nothing left in me to smile. There's no light and it's embarrassing that it's all because of a boy that couldn't care less. Ace omo how much for one spark 😭?

Hauwa, you meanie! What has your heart ever done to you to deserve this? I do it on purpose- liking the wrong people. Wait, what the actual hell??? I think I'm glad he got a girlfriend. So what am I sad about?

I'm sad he did not like the tree swaying with its yellow flowers. I'm sad he did not like the sunlight filtering through leaves. I'm sad he did not ask if I liked Tom or Summer better. I'm sad he asked about poetry. I'm sad that I'm sad about these things because it makes my claim to be over him a lie.

And it's annoying that my brain still insists that I do not like him, at least not romantically. But what proof do I have of that? I care about him and he crosses my mind at least once every week. But everyone does. I think of a lot of people at least once a week and I care about them. So, what does that mean? That I like all of them? Definitely not! So what the hell is this?

Here's what's worse, I'm legit glad he for a new gf. I'm sad but I cannot stop being glad. Wth??

I want to see her. I'm sure she deserves him and he deserves her. Wth is this? Are you glad or sad? Decide!

What I know is that we met often when I was four to five years old and because we were in the same age group, the adults would tell us to ‘go and play’ together. I was very friendly and down to play with him but there was something about him, something I didn’t really have a name for. Then, I thought he was weird, now I see that he was different. He saw the world in a slightly different lens from that of people I considered ‘normal’.

I really tried to be friends but he made it so hard. I mistook his silence for disinterest, avoidance for rudeness and his intense stare for something dark which I needed to run away from. His looks weren’t helping at all. Don’t get the wrong idea, he wasn’t ugly. He was just incredibly light-skinned and that was adding something different to a truck load of other things that were very different about him. I could be telling him something and he would just ignore me and wouldn’t even spare me a glance. I assumed that eye contact was a moral choice and had no idea it could be a physical discomfort for some.

Sometimes, he would jerk his hands and his legs really hard and I’d get hit. It reached a point where I just couldn’t take it anymore and told my mom I hated being around him. I remember how she hugged me while laughing and told me that he wants to be my friend and that I should always be nice to him and treat him well, that I should not be afraid of him. That just made me sure that adults will never understand us. Like, “Mother, I’m telling you that this kid is a weirdo and you’re telling me to be nice to him? This boy doesn’t even look at me and somehow, he wants to ‘be my friend’? Are you even listening to me?”

Whenever we visited, I’d always get stuck with him (much to my displeasure). I stopped trying and would just sit with him in silence until our moms decided they had had enough of their chats. I would stare too, that very judgy stare that spelt ‘what the hell is the matter with you?’. Whenever our eyes met, I’d get scared to death and look away. He had this thing for circles and anything that rotated or had revolutions-ceiling fans, car tyres, spinners- anything at all. He’d stare at them with this spark in his eyes, he’d abandon every other thing and just stare and get so absorbed. I found that very weird as well.

I remember the last time I saw him. My mom told me to go talk to him. I went and of course he ignored me, so I hid behind somebody. I can’t remember who but they were seated on a chair and I just stared at him from behind the chair. We were outside, there was lots of trees and I think he was wearing a green caftan or maybe it was a white buttons-down with green jeans. He would run to his sister then run back and stare at the trees with this silly look on his face and I thought ‘what a weirdo’ but would look away the moment he saw me because I knew he could easily smack me. That was how the day went until it was time to leave and we all said our good-byes. I really think my brain is making this up, but I think we hugged and waved goodbye. It feels like something that happened yet at the same time like something my brain is making up.

It was years later that I found out he was autistic! The words ‘autism spectrum disorder’ felt like a map. They provided a much-needed explanation that made me go “oh, this makes total sense!”. I felt so bad about my judgement when I was a child, for thinking he was a weirdo, for almost hating him (I definitely hated his random jerking that led to me getting smacked on the nose but then he couldn’t help it, could he?)

I really wish my mom had explained to me what it was, I wish I knew then when he might have needed me to. I would have been nicer and more patient. I would not have interrupted or judged him. I would not have given up on trying to be friends.

It’s crazy how I can’t even remember his name. It’s all those names that start with the letter S. Like Saifullah, Shamsudeen, Salman. I honestly have no idea.

I'm clearly not Kamal,

so we all know I can't rhyme.

But I was feeling very shitty,

And at the moment I was down

You asked if I was fine.

Not sure how to make these lines feel heart-to-heart

But you called me pretty even though you da real art

I could write scribes about your eyes

But my words would probably fill skies.

You're so cool

I'm sure you know

If I was you

I'd be over the moon

But even better than that

Is that I got to cross paths with you.

So thank you aminatuu

The poem is not much

I hope you find joy everywhere you look.

The Line has no name

It has no place

Neither origin nor destination

The Line is not living but it helps with living

The Line takes any shape it pleases.

Some days it feels like The Line begins as a thinness at dawn

A distinct thread between morning and dark

When the sky doesn’t try to lie

When the sun and the moon don’t have to fight

When waking up feels like a call that when missed haunts you till dusk.

Along the seams I walk

Feet bare, with a light in my hand.

The light is not too dim yet nothing grand

Just bright enough to trace the faint geography of what is not said aloud.

The dark is not banished it remains around me

And right on my palm where The light is,

I find the dark being honest.

The Line is a lot of things and has no name

It is a thing that buzzes with the memory of other things

I name it only to steady my unsettledness

I name it so I can trust it-

because I trust it.

I have followed The Line alone,

Unarmed and guided only by a feeling.

Sometimes it was the voice of someone lost

Sometimes it was the name of a forgotten love

Sometimes it was the sudden realization of a wrong that must be righted

Or a betrayal that seeks confrontation.

There was a night when the Line was a door opened

And I slipped through like a teenager into her room.

The room inside smelt like a part of myself- too familiar

It smelt like rain,

It smelt like tea in chipped porcelain

It smelt like cold overly sweetened yogurt

Like Monday mornings mid-September or

Sunday evenings while eating donuts.

In the room, I saw someone who handed me a mug.

They were mending a satchel and they offered me an empty journal with two ink pens.

We spoke of small moments and drowning betrayal

Of moments we learnt to forgive and those we begged to forget

Of maps we had folded and those we unlearned.

The line between us turned into a bridge,

In the room I had found courage but then I had to leave.

Outside, it was cold

We stitched our secrets together into a blanket

And when we stepped back,

The blanket stood before us like it had been waiting.

Sometimes, The Line is a wound that refuses to heal

Like a gash on the world’s skin where clarity decides to leak

We bandage it with stories and lies,

Like a failure we aim to hide

but the scar remains like a souvenir.

Not a failure but a map to show us where we have been.

There are times when The Line becomes a river,

Small floods of emotions that swallow everything in their way

And when this happens, the world seems to forget how to be

And the delicate architecture of calm is lost.

There are other times when The Line is a mirror I am too afraid to look into

For fear that it will show me the parts of myself which I have kept so well hidden

The line has this thing with clarity and honesty

And there are lies I have told myself so many times that they have become true.

There are times when The Line is music but only if you allow yourself to listen

Like a string that is plucked or a piano that plays

Dust particles move, the air vibrates

and the light dances to a song that tells the truth of what matters.

I have followed the rhythm once, I found rooms I did not know I owned and in those rooms I found versions of myself I did not know existed.

The light is nothing almighty

It just asks us to pay attention.

To be present for the big wins and small betrayals

To be present for the laughter and the tears

To be present for engagement and forgiveness

To let ourselves live and bear the cost of existing.

When I am old and my skin remembers the angles of so many lines

I will tell the story of The Line to whoever is willing to listen.

I will not tidy it up or give it moral conclusions

I will say only this:

‘The line asks not for perfection but presence’.

So, if you find a thinness at dawn, don’t be afraid to follow it.

Bring your honest hunger and walk through that door.

-Hauwa

The way the world swallowed itself

A duvet of shadows like a map with no compass

Inked with the constellations of silent whispers.

Other moths lived between the moments in shadows,

Counting the moments between embers and seeking nothing more

She was not like them

She kept a ledger of yearning, a journal of longing

Written descriptions of small combustions

The warmth came in different forms at different moments

A candle, a matchstick, a lantern by the window

Those were all promises she could not ignore

The flame was at first like a rumour- thin and insistent

Like a thread of saffron that tore through the evening

It was neither loud nor wild

It simply existed, flickering in unison with her wings.

The flame watched as she circled it once, then twice

It watched with that silence of someone who knew what they were capable of.

Until the circling became circumambulation

And the moth, each day like a faithful worshipper, took a leap of faith and got closer and closer.

The flame remained, frank in its light

It did not promise safety; it was an honest instrument of fire that did not pretend to be more

Yet it glowed like a secret invitation of light that said ‘Come closer’.

Closer, of course she went

In its light she saw herself

Not a hollow shadow, not a foolish moth that went where she would be undone

But the outline of her true self, of her own hunger, of a tremor of courage and desire.

Forgetting that it was not just a mirror but a mirror that burned,

she learnt the language of the flame,

studied it like she was reading a face

learned to read its pauses and flares

learned to feel the curves of its breath.

At times, she stayed away

Staring at the flame from a distance, strong against the darkness

And she would tell herself that sometimes love is supposed to be looked at

To be kept at a distance because getting close meant burning what was already loved.

But longing has always been a cruel urge

Like an animal that gnaws at your insides until nothing is left in you but that burning desire which carves its name onto your soul

So, she approached the flame with a prayer she did not realise she knew

As though confessing a crime she did not know she committed

Committing herself like a worshipper in surrender

Surrendering herself to the warmth of the flame

The flame that consumed her as if falling was a kind of song

And in that song she heard the names of all the feathers turning into memories,

The memories into ashes, the ashes into light

and the light into a reflection of her dance with the flame.

Paper and wing and hunger and heat

Unite in a music that crescendos into a silent beat

And the moment seems as though foolish on her part

But people do not see that the flame loved her in the only way it could

It offered itself, not with a promise but with the clarity it knew

And in offering, it did what fire does- it burnt.

The moth burned, and in burning, learnt the language she knew but never got to speak.

The burning changed the moth, it gave meaning to her devotion

It gave her the salvation it promised, the silence that felt like mercy

She had given herself to a truth that had been hidden for too long

She found out for herself that to be drawn in is not always a sin.

The flame changed as well

It had been a steady honest violence

But the moth’s courage taught it something new-

The language of longing and loss,

A mourning that taught it to be more than what devours

It became a witness, a guardian of the moth’s last words.

Some moths circle, some moths rot

Some moths choose to love what burns

Some flames devour, some flames burst

Some flames give light to the truth of what they burn.

The moth and her flame,

A moment reduced into warning,

A life that has been mislabelled as a cautionary note.

A story told in different ways, as wonder, as advice, as a lesson on valour.

But the moth’s truth remains simple and true,

she loved a light and as her final act of love, she became light.

-Hauwa

I am in a pretty bad mood at the moment, I don’t know what it’s about. I think it’s the bad network, or the fact that I saw a bug on my leg earlier. My leg is quite hairy, I think I should wax it off. Or maybe not, no one will see after all. Why is it more about people and less about me? Am I people-centered? Idk fr! I miss my cousins, I miss playing with them, I miss watching Youtube and talking about school. I also miss my friends.

My neck hurts, I have an abominable posture. My sister says I should fix it now before I get older. She just got back from Abuja, she met my cousins. The light is still blinking. I cannot see the screen properly, it’s blurry and bright and the light keeps bouncing off into rainbow colours. I think the cramps are getting bad.

Sometimes, all I look forward to is death. Not in a morbid way, just… in a way. A way I am not sure I have words to explain. Because sometimes, it feels like there isn’t much to life but death and what comes after. And all this that’s happening just feels like a necessary struggle which I want to spare myself but cannot say so out loud. Because it truly is not so bad, there’s joy and love everywhere I look, as much as there is pain and animosity. I want to die but not in the suicidal sense, just as a preference to certain social undertakings.

I promise I’m fine, perfectly in fact.

Well, except for the fact that I am very sleepy, but that’s healthy, isn’t it?

A few days ago, I saw a reel on Instagram that labelled a writer’s works as just pouring words unto paper and calling it poetry and something about ‘modern poetry’, or ‘new-age writers’, or something like that (I can’t really remember with certainty). Some of the comments agreed, using big and charismatic words to support their claims, while others disagreed, using equally big and charismatic words to support their claims. One comment stuck with me, it said ‘people be acting like there wasn’t bad writing back in the days’ (or so, I can’t remember clearly), another one spoke about how the appeal of ‘modern writing’ was in its simplicity and how easy it was to understand and relate to. Another comment said that some people just wake up and write about break ups with a little (can’t remember the words they used) and then call it a poem, that that wasn’t true writing, bla bla bla.

If I say right now that I did not care, then I’ll be lying. Because that reel bursted my bubble, the bubble that writing had more to do with expressing one’s thoughts, feelings, ideas and emotions. Because I’m constantly doubting my writing skills and even after reading a ton of good comments, what stuck with me was how easily this apparently ‘experienced’ and ‘not new-age’ writer slammed a label unto another writer’s work! And I don’t think the ‘new-age’ writer even used Artificial Intelligence to generate her work but I don’t think it mattered because my dumb brain told me that everyone who had ever complimented my writing was lying (no offense) and was just trying to make me feel good and that I was a terrible and hopeless writer who would never be as good and that everyone was probably laughing at me and that I should give up on writing and get rid of all my writings and wipe every memory anyone has of me as someone who writes. I even felt ashamed of dreaming of being an author someday.

I think it was just the hormones though. Then I came across this article that made me see that writing is about expressing one’s self. Then I decided to discard that reel.

The cramps have subsided. It’s 23:10 on the ninth of May 2026. A Saturday night, the night is warm, the atmosphere still. I wonder where still.ives is. And Kamal and Not Too Saint Abdullah. I wonder what Zahrah is doing right now and if Aminatuu is still irritable. What plans does Yass have for her birthday and is Nussyy’s stomach is still upset? Ace’s headace must have subsided. I always read Lone Wolf’s name as Lone, just Lone. I wonder if Summy truly meant it when she said it was fine I didn’t come over like I said I would, for the second time. Is the deadline stressing Ahmadu? Is my sister watching tiktoks right now? Has Teems started studying for her exams? Do people think of me as much as I think of them? If they do, what do they think when they think of me? How do they feel?

I like to think of people, I think it’s such a secret way of screaming ‘I LOVE YOU AND I MISS YOU AND YOU MAKE ME HAPPY!!”

Aminatuu has still not changed her name to aminathree and I think Kamal was serious about this not writing for a while thing (oh noo). Now that I think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever read Not Too Saint Abdullah’s articles. Does he post articles? I have to check. Oh and zahrah has also not posted in a while… she seems a bit busy though.

I read The Perks of Being a Wallflower again today. My head never shuts up. Never.

Now it’s 23:22, I should go to bed.

I’m not done reading Ace’s Once upon a Time, I will though… tomorrow.

I hope I don’t die tonight, I don’t think I’ve done enough yet.

23:24 and I’m still here. Maybe I should plug the laptop in…or let it shutdown.

Maybe I should sleep

(The laptop shut down and when I woke up this morning I forgot what I wanted to write but remembered not to change a thing so I just posted this without thinking anything through because I’m Hauwa)

Anxiety. It’s the invisible weight that weighs on your chest when there’s nothing clearly wrong. It’s when your lungs refuse to work because there’s an imaginary blockage somewhere. It’s the trembling hands that betray you when you desperately want to appear calm, the pulsing thoughts that are a million times louder than your silent screams for help. Anxiety, the unceasing “what if” that feeds into our lives like a cankerworm and turns ordinary moments into battlegrounds.

Sometimes, anxiety hits like a storm you are never prepared for. Panicky breaths that ambush your lungs without warning, breaths that convince you something terrible is happening, that the imaginary dread you created has somehow found its way to you. A type of dread that colours every bit of your life, parts that you don’t even want it visiting. It’s colour seeps into the threads of every interaction, every decision, every relationship, every plan.

Anxiety can be a social fear of being disliked, judged, seen, laughed at or rejected. It can also be generalized, a natural response to stress, danger or important events, a duvet of worry that envelops every aspect of life. Sometimes, anxiety is specific, a phobia, a fear of certain objects or situations that makes the world feel smaller in comparison.

It feels like all eyes are on you yet you’re not the centre of attention, you’re not the one that matters rather what matters is what you do and how wrong it can go. You overthink every word, every nod, every action. You find faults in whatever you do and see everyone else as the embodiment of perfection. You feel like there’s something wrong with you, something you can’t make right. And if you can’t make it right then you have to hide it, you have to make something else the focus. So, you hide yourself to be more pleasing, to calm your painful dread of being disliked. But that doesn’t help at all, if anything it makes things worse.

Because now you have more on your plate. You have to juggle numerous masks while trying to find balance. Your fear increases, now you don’t just fear imagined scenarios or being disliked by people who don’t even matter, now you have a new fear, the fear of being caught, the fear of being seen for who you truly are. You analyse every interaction. Every eye feels like they can see right through you.

“Did I laugh too hard? Did I smile too bright? Was my reply too defensive? Was my stare too long? Do they see me now? Do they like me anymore? They don’t like me anymore! They don’t like me anymore! I have to do something. I can’t lose them. I should not have done anything. They don’t like me anymore. They’re gone. They hate me. They hate me. They hate me.”

Your anxiety deduces all that from one look that lasted one millisecond longer than it normally does.

What makes anxiety so cruel is not only the shortness of breath, jittery hands, sweaty palms, racing heart or the pain in one’s chest, it’s not the waking up exhausted because your thoughts have been running marathons in spirals, it’s not the silence that sounds louder than a megaphone. What makes anxiety so cruel is not the fear itself but the shame that follows.

You feel you should be tougher, calmer, saner and more rational. You see people that are unbothered and wonder why you can’t be like them. You can’t control your overthinking, and you feel like an attention seeker for overreacting, like you’re exaggerating something you don’t even have any control over. Who could truly understand the chaos going on inside your head if even you don’t?

Anxiety thrives on uncertainty, magnifying small doubts into weather systems that foresee the whirlwind of threats coming your way. It whispers that no preparation of yours will ever be effective, that overwhelming disaster will always be around the corner, just one wrong move by you and everything will come crashing down. “You will make a wrong move. You always do” it tells you. You can’t trust yourself. You try not to make a big deal of it; you even laugh it off in public but inside you’re unravelling. You know it’s not the end of the world, but it feels like it. And because it shows up in the body through shallow breaths, racing hearts and sweaty palms, it feels real even when the danger is imagined and no amount of reassurance can convince you it’s not.

Everyone will tell you to “just relax” which makes your belief that no one could ever truly understand the chaos in your head more justified. They all miss the point. Anxiety is not a choice, it’s not something one can control. It’s something you have to live with, like a condition.

People will always tell you that it’s not that bad and often times it isn’t. They tell you that it’s because you care too much and that you worry because you want things to go well, because you love deeply and fear loss, that it does not make you weak, rather it makes you unique and human.

Well, maybe you don’t want to care too much, maybe you don’t want to love so deeply that every breath feels like daggers striking your heart, maybe you don’t want to be unique. You wish to be like other people- grounded, rational, calm and unbothered, caring just enough, loving just as required. No panicky breathing, no sweaty palms, no overthinking, no thought spirals. Feeling everything in just the right amount, carrying your worry without letting it crush you.

But even that wish feels like a faraway dream because anxiety- your dear friend and foe- the anxiety whose voice never ceases to whisper into your ears will always tell you that there’s some impending doom coming your way, that the end of the world is seconds away and one wrong move from you will bring everything crashing down. And you will make a wrong move; you always do because you can’t trust yourself. You are incapacitated, can never save yourself and nobody will come to save you.