Memories

Keeping all these memories is like carrying a bottle of acid. I am corroding. I have shunned traditional cleansing. I have shunned medical help. I have also shunned God. Time has not healed me as I expected.

I walk about with all the memories. I carry the past in my mind. I live it. It takes away my sleep. It has killed my soul. I have not been able to keep relationships. Seven women. Thirteen children. None of them close to me.

I am 67 now. Time when I need an ear. A warm soft body by my side. A woman who can whisper to me when I cry alone during the night. Rub the stiffness off my back. Assure me all is well. Dry the tears for me.

I cry. Most of the times. Yes, I cry. I will sleep to wash over me. To hug me. Embrace me. Bury me in her soft curves. 

But sleep like all the women who came into my life has left. I cry because I am alone in the nights. I listen to the wind outside. I stare in the darkness. I am afraid. 

Nobody tells me any more about seeking help. But I see it in their eyes. In Cabinet. At the office. In Parliament. All the eyes tell me to seek for help.

Why can't they tell me? Stop being scared of me. And walk up to me and shout it in my face: Go Seek Help Old Man! Maybe, I will hear them. Maybe, I will take their shouted advice.

There is no one. I am alone in the world. I have amassed all these assets. I lack nothing. Yet I cannot manage to get sleep. I fly. I am driven around. Soldiers salute me. When I am driving around, traffic stops for me. The whole city too stands still. Yet I cannot sleep.

I need to talk to somebody. Anybody. But what I know, have seen, and done is not for human ears. So I will write about it. I am doing so now. So when I lose sleep, I will talk to my diary. I will confront my past here.

Yes, I will talk to myself. No need for a psychologist to probe into my past. No need for a traditional healer to spit at me. No pastor to lay their hands on me. I will also defy time. I will heal myself. Get my sleep back.