BLACK SHIRT

I wore red lipstick and pointed heels; it was a different kind of day. I’m usually sure about myself and aware of what feels right and what doesn’t. I am sure that I am not sure about marriage. I am sure that I am not sure about having children. I like children just fine but I don’t have a strong urge to run after my own terrible two. Sharing this thought and then seeing the expression that takes over people’s faces just makes me feel like I have failed at being a woman and succeeded at being a robot, or that I am cold hearted child hater. Babies and marriage don’t feel like a calling for me, I don’t wake up with the sole mission to be a wife and a mother. Every day I am sure about this but not today. Today my emotions were scattered around like confetti. They were in my hair, on my dress, caught on my lashes and I tried to step on them but they just scattered even more so I just sat down and kept my mouth shut lest the poured over the brim. I blame your black on black outfit and those grey shoes. Black is a powerful colour, signifies a death to weakness, signifies the strength of death and it announces the presence of mystery. The contrast of the black against your skin made me slightly dizzy and in that moment I was curious of what it is like to be owned. Owned by someone who makes you dizzy. It would ruin me. Me who finds strength in my individuality. I’m scared that I’d be weak and I would like it, that I wouldn’t be me anymore and I would love it. I haven’t stopped thinking about you, not you as a person because I don’t know you. I haven’t stopped thinking about what you signify. You signify that tiny spec of uncertainty that I have about facing the world as a single woman. But even as I recognize the spec, I am reminded of the huge ass elephant in the room twerking for my attention.

You see I don’t have time and energy. I don’t have time to play mind games and figure out the true underlying meaning of your “How you doing hun?” message. I don’t find pleasure in the silly torture that is getting pretty and faking an entire personality on dates, in hoping you like me, in choosing my words and laughing cautiously, in competing with the other girls that have noticed how fine you look in black. I don’t have time to tailor my music taste, to tolerate annoying friends and to smile and kiss in selfies ‘just because.’ I also don’t have time for self-indulgent men, who exploit my intelligence and my good listening skills by talking about themselves and caring about only them.

Somewhere in this body is a woman who has seen it all, felt it all and is uninterested in discovering the end because I have seen this movie before and I only watch movies once. I don’t know much about you but I have managed to box you in, you are in a safe compartment in my head and it is non-toxic to look at you, greet you and walk past you. But today isn’t that kind of day, I’m unsettled so I can’t help it. I want things, I want stark naked and open things. I want you to see that I am passionate, emotional, crazy and multi-talented and not be scared of it. Sthandwa described me as a smart weirdo. I wasn’t surprised, many people who don’t really know me describe me this way. You know what would surprise me? If you saw more than I showed and just knew me. So where would that lead? Would it lead to you doing your thing while I do mine, or you praying in the next room while I wrote with us still being in perfect synchrony? Would it lead to me waking up early to align your outfits and taking pride in your successes and feeling like dropping my life to live yours? Would it lead to children with your teeth and my eyes, my hair but your stare? Years later would your light still shine, would I turn you on? Right now I am not even sure you understand why I am too lazy to finish my own sentences.

See. These questions don’t have answers and that is why I do not flirt, that is why I don’t bother with small talk and I let texts just be texts. That is why winking smilies get a thumbs up because nope, I am not playing with fire, not today anyway. So do me a favour, never wear that black shirt again.