Youth.
You were so naïve and so optimistic and although most people mistook your optimism for a somewhat unrealistic approach to life, you always told me, “Don’t worry. Your dreams are just taller than what you are and your determination, even taller. It’s strange to average-height people.”
When I close my eyes, I feel the anticipation about going outside to check on the family of snails we named together during the early mornings of the spring holiday. I smell the freshly cut grass drenched in dew and the sound of the Hadedas we used to call ‘Dragon Birds’ (secretly, so they don’t hunt us down) fill my ears. The euphoric feeling of snail ‘goo’ all over our hands…and the realisation that we felt love.
See, for the first time, we felt needed even though the snails were oblivious to our willingness to nurture for no reason at all.
That, right there was our first mistake, you and I.
To love even when unwanted. It led us to our first heartbreak. It lead to your image of the liberating oblivion about all things emotionally ugly and ‘yucky’ to slowly fade. It lead to us slowly drifting apart, you and me…It lead to your slow and painfully progressing death.
Our imaginary friend that we used to speak to, has been renamed by this ‘Grown-up’ world as ‘Talking to Yourself’ and because you kept running away from what was supposed to be our dark moments, you left me with no more guidance and I fell into the trap of growing up. I let them call our friend ‘Talking to Yourself’. I let myself call our friend ‘Talking to Yourself’.
I’ll never forget the day you perished. It was the moment I wasn’t seen as ‘Moyatjie’ by my uncles and aunts, but as ‘Aunty Moya’ by their children.
Every day, when I look in the mirror, I see that you have left me: hips that now curve out and are covered in thighs decorated by stripes that wrap around them, contoured facial features that once were full, a pouted facial pose where a smile once was…
But when I sit in pure silence and the room is filled with euphoric sounds of my soul, I find you. I write you down, I laugh in your name, I smile and joke and jump and sing in your name. I sing and I sing and I sing and that song will always be the song of you. That song will be always be the last piece I have left of you that I wouldn’t dare to let go.
Your secret legacy within me will live on forever.
