The lady in the mirror

I felt u again today…..should be about 9, 10 years since our last encounter.

I thought I had gotten rid of you, but I felt you again today……..the blood rush, heart racing, wicked stammer, visible shaking of the hands, I thought I had gotten rid of you, but I felt you again today.

Merely sitting here, just thinking about it again, I can still feel my hands shaking.

I remember the last time I felt you, you earned me the name ‘slow poison’, which, by God’s mercy was erased from everyone's memory before the next term began. I was in class (this was jss3), minding my own business, and he (*Salam) walked up to me and did something.....I cant even remember what exactly it is he did or said, but I very well remember that within the next 5 mins, I was in my class matron office, on my knees for beating up a boy!

Im smiling now, buh looking back, I still don’t have a stage by stage understanding of how it all happened, all I remember was that my heart started racing, I turned pink, and trust me, this wasn't the good kind of pink, I couldn’t say a word cos I suddenly developed this wicked stammer and I suddenly felt as strong as Atlas (he’s the Greek god said to be carrying the world on his shoulders).
I didn’t actually beat him up, buh trust me, they say I could as well have, the story goes that I hurled a whole ‘locker’ at him (‘locker’ was the term used then for the seats we used in my school).

Though I was still serving punishment, I was still shaking and I couldn’t finish a sentence without opening my mouth to its limits in stutter. I stayed in her office for the whole day cos it took that long for me to kill the stuttering. The only reason I wasn’t severely dealt with was cos I had won best student in her course the previous year, and I was still her best student, plus….I think she had a crush on my dad!

Back to the present and I’m here, and just like the nine-tailed fox in Naruto, charging up, buh I’m stuck, stuck at the 7th gate, pitying the prey to be destroyed, buh then I think and I realize…..its barely 2 months to my convocation, n I couldn’t afford no scandal, besides……life is too short.
Too short for frivolities and too long to leave with the consequences of mistakes made. On everyone’s tombstone is written


‘Yadi yadiyada’
‘1900-1999’


Life is just a dash, putting someone in ‘the hospital way’ wouldn’t make the dash on my tombstone longer or fatter, it’ll still be, just a dash.

So, today I felt you again, I felt rage, but God prevailed


Yours……..ever calm

A.D