Category: Late Night

Anxiety, Coping System, Descriptive, Emotion, Late Night, Pain, PenPractice, Thoughts, thoughts, writing

Grey Clarity on a Cold Evening

I. Ogunbase

Life is funny, sometimes. A downright comedian when you truly begin to see how it operates. How it flows and ebbs. How it pulls and pushes. A Joker, to be succinct.

And whenever I said this, I’m generally met with momentary confusion and awkward reluctant acceptance especially after I add the caveat that I have at a ready for situations like this.

“Life is funny sometimes because all you can do is laugh… Because if you don’t laugh, well… then it breaks you down.”

Isn’t it interesting how one of the most important, underrated emotions that no one seems to talk about is “Disappointment”

I personally think its one of the stronger negative emotions. Not anger or frustration or pain or grief.

Disappointment. /dɪsəˈpɔɪntm(ə)nt/
sadness or displeasure caused by the non-fulfilment of one’s hopes or expectations.
“to her disappointment, there was no chance to talk privately with Luke”

Its a Thursday night (as of this writing) and I’m sequestered on a table at the corner of a beautifully decorated hall to celebrate a friends traditional Nigerian wedding.

The colours are cool; Purple, adorned with white flowers sets and green flowery background around the couples’ chair. A dance floor, white with gold trimmings with the print names of my friends. The music is loud and inviting. Different notes, different tones and the adults are all enjoying themselves in the centre, dancing their night away in joy and laughter.

The joy I feel for my friends, the couple, is immense. Its been a while coming, especially with how the pandemic has derailed everything.

And it is in this immense joy, that I find myself being disappointed.

Disappointed with plans.
Disappointed with Life.
Disappointed with people.
Disappointed in things.
Disappointment like grief.

This, ever-expanding sea of apathy and diet nihilism that I’ve fallen into but I’m not drowning. It’s not choking me. Instead, it wraps itself around me like a breathing apparatus. I can see through the ripples. I can breathe through the tube in my mouth. My movements are delayed but I’m not bound or restrained against my will.

And its because of this disappointment-like-grief that I have to laugh in the face of life being life. In the face of life being volatile. Because if I can’t laugh at the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of life, I lose the only defence against the apathy in front of me.

And that’s the one thing I can’t allow.

After all, if life ebbs and flows like the sea then I’ll be eventually washed up on a beach somewhere. Preferably with a cocktail in one hand and my wife’s hand in the other. Some summer wear to enjoy the season and a hammock so that we can gaze at the blue. And life would be good again.

Until the next tidal wave hits.

Anxiety, Coping System, Descriptive, Emotion, Late Night, Life, Pain, PenPractice, Poem, Shorts, Sleepy time, Thoughts, thoughts, writing

Responsible.

I. Ogunbase

Responsibility is light.
Responsibility is heavy.

Responsibility is as light as a feather,
The spring in your step propelling you further till you fly,
It becomes the wings on your back,
Lifting you past the clouds till you’re up on high…
It is the cool shades you wear when you step into a function,
It draws the eyes of admiration on you.
For you,
It blots out the stars till you’re the only star shining.
The brightness lighting up the dark sky so intensely,
It only made sense for everyone else to shield their eyes.

Responsibility is the twinkle in your eye.
The confidence in your actions that make everyone want to stand behind you.
The winning smile that lets you past the doors that once kept you.
It is the strength you never knew you had or wanted,
Equipped to lift the burden of others.
It is the hope of tomorrow,
The sunrise on another day.
The assurance that you are in a better place than you once were.

It is freedom.

And it makes you cry.

Tears of joy, yes,
But not without merit.

After all those years of waiting, you’ve finally gotten here,
And it is everything you’ve wanted.

—

Responsibility is heavy.

It drags you off the edge of a cliff,
And lets you hit the waters with no mask.
So you gasp for air but the lack thereof doesn’t kill you.
You just suspend in viscous space,
As the liquid sears your lungs and makes you cry out for relief.

It is the bags beneath your eyes because you haven’t been sleeping.
How can you?
When it is knocking on your walls,
Questioning every decision you’ve made and
berating you for the ones you didn’t make.
So it renames you as “Negligent”

“You thought you had the right stuff but you don’t” It says.

Responsibility is a duty.

It commands. Never requests.
It punishes when you fail to reach the criteria it sets before you,
Even if the rule-book to your actions have been hidden from you.
It demands the entirety of your being,
Gifting you a burden that you can’t give to anyone else.

It gives you the option to ignore it,
Of which it incrues an interesting amount of interest on it.
So that when you return,
You will find your responsibility ripe with profits that you really don’t want.

Responsibility is not kind.
It is not cruel nor is it wicked.
It doesn’t love you and won’t give itself to hate.

It simple requires your best “you”.

And sometimes, that’s not enough.

Anxiety, Coping System, Descriptive, Emotion, Late Night, Life, Love, Pain, PenPractice, Poem, Prose, Shorts, Sleepy time, thoughts, Uncategorized, writing

Sleepless

I. Ogunbase

The room is cold. Harsh. Unforgiving.

But it’s safe here.

It’s home here.

Everything freezes in here. Left to hang in the air like unsaid words and unresolved emotions. It’s much better in the long run.

It’s better than the fires outside that are licking the frame of the door, begging that I open up so that they can engulf me in their responsibility.

In their warmth. In their potential for great things spanning countries and changing lives around the globe.

Their fire for making everyone around happy and content that I’m not a popsicle like the rest of them, but the rest of them are here and I can tell they are cool.

But this is better. Much better than playing with a natural energy source and watching it consume me. Why would I risk being burnt alive? What’s the endgame there?

Success or cremation? And they think I would risk it all for that?

So yeah, this is fine.

This is fine.

I agree my fingers might be numbing off from inactivity and the general lack of engagement for it’s better this way.

It means I won’t be able to carry anything after a while.

That said…

It is very cold…

Anxiety, Coping System, Descriptive, Emotion, Late Night, Life, Pain, PenPractice, Poem, Shorts, Sleepy time, thoughts, writing

Sleepless

I. Ogunbase

I am tired

From the moment I decided to wake up from whatever dream I was having

Tired because of how long the previous day had me feeling

Tired because of the hours spent overnight thinking

Tired because the thoughts in my head prevent my resting

So I wake up tired.

Headache banging, my impromptu alarm clock with no snooze button

Mouth dry and clammy as my body has redirected the liquid to its exit by my eyelids

Exhaustion caused by the mental alchemy of turning depression into physical defects

The shot glass remains ever empty, but I can’t deny the impulse.

The thought of the brief release as it wrecks my nerves.

The bitter aftertaste as the burn travels down my throat

So I look up, past the clouds, with a sincere hope that my Creator is looking back at me.

“I’m here… I’m lost… When you can please holler back at me…

Because the days are getting shorter and the nights are getting longer and I’m not coping properly…

And I’m using all I have, to do all I can, but things are not as it should be…

I know I’m not the best, I don’t think I measure up to the rest, but please turn your gaze back to me…

Because I’m tired…

…oh so tired…

I’m getting tired of being me”

Anxiety, Descriptive, Emotion, Late Night, Life, Pain, Poem, Prose, Sleepy time, Thoughts, thoughts, writing

Shot Glass.

I. Ogunbase

Adrenaline and emotional pain, poured into a shot glass for your heart to drink.

You’d call it poison, I’d call it life.

Life, like the pound notes entering your pocket, but bleeding through the hole at the bottom as you try to pay the debtor for “one more day”.

Like the great staircase leading upwards, whose only requirement is that you step on the head and bodies of others to ensure there’s enough space for you to claim as yours.

You’d call it deplorable. Some would say “Competition”.

Competition as basic as who gets into work the earliest to bask in some sweet brownie points of being “ever ready” to get to work. Or is it the excellence in one’s field as they struggle to show that their work is worth taking notice off above others?

Or maybe it’s the “trying-to-1-up-you-by-showing-you-how-much-I-can-provide-for-you-when-contrasted-with-how-much-you-can-provide-for-me-” sort of battle, as couples hug in public as they joust in their individual mental landscapes.

Some would say its healthy.

Others would liken it to alcohol.

But after the first couple shots, the burning feeling in your chest dissipates as your body temperature rises from the pot of emotions bubbling underneath.

Words start to slur as words decide to stop lying on your behalf. Memories merge into an amalgamation of horror and fancy as you play the “What If?” game with yourself.

Then the world spins, and you taste the exotic dish of hard granite and dirt on your lips to pass the night.

And for a moment,
however brief,
It
all
just
stops

And then you awake.

 

Descriptive, Emotion, Late Night, Life, Love, Pain, PenPractice, Shorts, Sleepy time, Thoughts, writing

Sleepless… 

I. Ogunbase

What I saw was the “could-be” version of her.

Not the “current”.

I fell for the demo version of her, because she was worried her reality would make me turn away.

I can’t blame her. Maybe I would have run. Maybe I would have stayed, and helped put back her broken frame, piece by piece, till she resembled the perfection that my Creator made her to be.

Either way.  I did stay.

Here.

In love with the reality in front of me.

Looking at her naked self, as she strives to preserve what little shell she has left, because her last companion left her with the damages and walked out of her life.

Either way.
I’m here.

So I roll my sleeves up, retrieving some glue and some sandpaper in hopes that I could assist in making her whole again.

But she doesn’t want me.

So I’m here.

And I don’t know what to do.

Emotion, Late Night, Love, Pain, PenPractice, Poem, Shorts, Sleepy time, thoughts, writing

Sleepless…

I. Ogunbase

3 hours in and my body forces me awake. Body heat fluctuating because it can’t understand how I can sleep while my mind’s in emotional disarray.

The light pierces through my eyelids, and having the flash of bright light, I find myself staring at the white ceiling.

Maybe I’m not as good in communication as I thought.