MMI

GENESIS III -WOKE

"J, you are mean," she laments. The English teacher's face betrays her disappointment  and the look in her eyes  speaks volumes. Some impish sense of pride gradually rises up within. My awareness of it only serves to bring forth a rather interesting dilemma. Conflicting parts on the inside: the need for likeness and desire for difference. One part  feels it is not appropriate to be experiencing such a feeling, which runs parallel to how I was brought up. Yet, the other part, the part I feel and know I am unconsciously leaning towards, is up in applause, cheering me on, giving me a smack on the back, nodding its head in an approving fashion and best of all, that part has my mischievous juices flowing. All this was based on an essay assignment written over the weekend while also playing football with my mates. Ideas flowed seamlessly as I mixed work and play, the exact opposite of how I had always been instructed. However, due to the intensity of play rising by the moment, I rather hurriedly brought the essay to a pretty dull conclusion. All the while being fully conscious and aware of the anticipatory effect built up within the essay. An effect that was sure to make the reader yearn, thirst and hunger for more of the story. Her reaction wasn't unwarranted, the ending was rather anti-climactic - and I knew it.

Laying on the desk table next to my bed is a poem. An incomplete poem. Incomplete, because of the fear that completing it would bring finality. Finality that is unwelcome because of a preference to dwelling in fantasy rather than having a dance with reality. Well, at least that's true when it comes to that poem. At present, I can afford no such luxury, T left, and even fantasies can't distort that reality.

 Close to 48 hours later, I am yet to text or call her. I can't really wrap my mind around it. Like it's an experience so new, so immediate, so unexpected, that all I can really do is freeze. Reaching out, so soon, seems like a proposition that is only likely to make things worse. Foolish pride and ego are also in the mix. However, that look in her eyes before she got up and left still haunts. The more I try to decipher it, the more I come up with more questions and less answers. 

"If only I could wash ya off me memory; but even that would be torture; damned if I do, damned if I don't; too stubborn to show; that inside is still the glow; can't, won't let you know; the depth inside too great, to really let go; poems you sent; your time with grace you lent; the sweet tales you whispered;  the secrets you treasured... " the poem read. The words to the incomplete poem came alive one rather cold and long night while reminiscing about her. Without a doubt, my first and only love to date, and similar to the incomplete nature of the poem, so was my expression of what I actually felt towards her, thus, eventually, she had had enough and moved on. 

Still unable to get answers, I scroll through an e-book site and happen to come across a title that grabs my attention - "Meeting The Shadow". While skimming though it, a specific segment of the book seems to be speaking to me directly in a spooky eye-opening manner. It describes the past as a raging mob and goes on to detail how there is nothing really abstract about the past. Now in a more apt reading state, a particular statement sticks out  - "What has marked you is still marking you." Simple words combined in a profound manner that demands one to dwell on them and dive deeper in order to try and figure out the hidden gems within. The statement makes me pause and contemplate the numerous times my gorgeous mother who I so love and admire, would start recounting a story. She would get me super attentive before suddenly, without warning, dropping the story and leaving me anxious, gasping for more.  Pleas for my curiosity to be sated were never actually met.  In that reflective state, I can't help but wonder whether all these thoughts and occurrences are all somehow connected: the essay memory from primary school, coming across the incomplete poem, the memory about mom's storytelling and most recently, T walking away? Yet again, more questions. Staring at the extra-ordinarily white ceiling while still overthinking, a thought comes across my mind that provides at the very least a temporary relief and makes me smile for the first time in a while. 

"Yeah, most definitely, T absolutely picked the words she said from Lady Gaga's song, "Shallow". No wonder they seemed familiar," I say out loud to no one in particular. Strange how actually voicing my thoughts out in the open while alone, not only gives me a slight sense of invigoration but also for the first time in a while, optimism.