Subject: A Brief Nirvana

Dear Reader,

I have been burdened by revelations, intoxications, and elements of starvation during this past year. I found myself wanting more but finding joy in less. I’ve lost control of my mind and body becoming what is necessary but never what is desired or required. I start each day with cuts and wounds in my heart that bleed into my day. My chest is layered with warm crust of baked blood coated with heartless frosting. I find naira signs in the corners where my heart used to be, and I don’t resent it because in truth poverty is the only hell to fear.

It’s been difficult to write about my mother’s death and the parts of me that go with her every day. I am slain with deeps cuts that don’t heal, and I wake up every night a little less human with a mind so fierce and dark it frightens the light. Yet, I don’t bother myself with my pain, in the words of Marcus Aurelius: Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by his own nature to bear. Shame on the soul, to falter on the road of life while the body still perseveres.

Welcome to my Nirvana.

(Preferred soundtrack — Khamari — Cherry Picking)