Dirty Dancing.

 

While the extravagant swear by their Chanel no. 5, I sit here and figure the smell of three things that I like any day; the smell of soil after the rain, the smell of food when I’m hungry, and how he smells like in the mornings.

The music blared in the club and he held me close for cosy dance. While I let loose in between and moved around, he told me I seemed different. Matured was the adjective he used. As we walked into his room later that night I could tell he was uncertain of a few thoughts in his head. Impressed, nevertheless.

I wish every Sunday mornings began in his arms after a tipsy night, but we both know familiarity breeds contempt.

Going Away.

HERE

I sat on the floor abruptly without noticing the scissors slip out of my slim fingers. The childish sketch of mine stuck on the card waiting to dry and the pink beads half stuck on the sides, forgotten. Two nights ago, a lot of things changed. The way I felt in that moment, I still do. It circulates like the blood in my veins, at the back of my mind.I didn’t know there were so many things more to know about him when we both moved here to this dead city, which gave us so much life in return. Not that I wasn’t happy to discover all over again. I’d never know how he smells like in the mornings, how the fish he prepares tastes just like my Mother’s, how he watches the news every day. All these things I’d never know if we were just our 16 and 17 year old self back in our little town.

Now I wake up in the morning and suddenly it hits me, everything’s going to be different. It’s like sitting on a time bomb counting the days for it to explode and I know I’m not going to die but the wound will impair me all the same. I think I should pray but I don’t. I’m sitting here trying to find the reasons why I’m so afraid when I shouldn’t be. I’m wondering how I should begin telling you about it. I’ve told him I’m getting drunk on his birthday.

I'm sorry you're you. Happy Holidays.

HERE

HERE

Till today I had been carrying a certain guilt with me because I believed in Odem when she told me I was ‘muck’, last summer on the last night at home. The misunderstanding that led to such an allegation was trivial and I was partly to blame, and even though I apologized the next day before getting on the plane, I knew she would never accept it.

I came back to the city and somehow life pushed that night a little less out of focus. It was subdued, yet very much present. Today KS called me and said something that put me at ease. He said that his cousin was an unrefined young lady who had little or no etiquette to talk to elders or anybody. He elaborated on the few things she said to his mother that was much out of line.

As he did so, I could hear her say I was muck that last summer in that callous tone. I knew what he meant because I was there too, in a similar situation with her. I never had the courage to tell him the things his cousin had told me that night because I was afraid of things I can’t explain. Today had nothing to do with me but I learnt something, being shadowed in flamboyant sanctity doesn’t make up for deficient decorum.