It is a cool Wednesday evening, eighteen minutes past seven, and I’m laying on my bed, covering my legs with the yellow wrapper my mother gave to me four years ago.

I’m reading a book by Chimamanda that I bought last week when I traveled.

The Thing Around Your Neck.

It reminds me of myself, my struggles, the emptiness that lay deep in my heart, refusing to go away. It stayed there, as if it had paid for rent.

This feeling started a long time ago– in my innocence, in my tainting,

when I waited with my brothers and sisters while my father warmed up his car downstairs for early morning Mass,

when I ate puff puff and smeared my lips with oil during Thanksgiving,

when I watched the girls in school from a distance, wishing I could be one of them but never really fitting in,

when I cried in the toilet and got frightened by the cockroaches flying around in the darkness,

when my body shook so much at night and my heart beat so fast and I heard voices and I was afraid so I laid awake watching the ceiling and listening to my siblings’ heartbeats while they slept peacefully,

wishing I too, could have that sort of peace,

when I couldn’t breathe under the heat so I layed under like a corpse until the agonizing act was over,

when I carried bitterness and guilt in my small heart,

when I didn’t understand why it was me that had to go through everything.

The feeling had been there, like a newly lit fire, growing and growing, resisting the water that had been poured on it for many years, pretending to have been quenched, but starting up again, stronger.

The funny thing is it’s only me that knows about the effect of this fire, it’s only me.

It’s a lonely road to walk on. Because nobody ever understands. Not Daddy and Mummy. Not friends. Not even the Catholic priests.

You’re forced to plaster a smile on your face. To force happiness into your heart, despite its unfamiliar taste.

To move ahead, to pretend this world is a big happy place full of wonderful people who care about the well-being of everyone.

To pretend your life is perfect.

Well,  not everything is meant to be understood.

So I try new things,

I visit new places,

I meet new people,

I try to find a new hobby,

learn a handwork maybe, but nothing really catches my fancy.

Nothing like writing.

It’s where I run to when I’m happy, when I’m sad, when I’m feeling empty and unemotional.

It has been with me ever since I was nine years old, when I would buy notebooks with my pocket money and write down plays which were acted in the school hall, and songs too.

The first song I ever wrote was titled “Home”.

“I wanna get home 

I wanna get home 

To my land where peace and glory dwell 

I’m wandering through this land, not my own

Unaware of the way to my home…..”

I was eleven when I wrote it.

And I wrote more plays, most of them weren’t acted. Most of them got lost when we relocated to somewhere else. So I had to start afresh, but then came the distractions.

The fire returned, accompanied by loneliness, depression and over thinking.

I was always crying. I cried so much my face became bloated. Well, not everything is meant to be understood.

Like I said earlier, I try new things.

I meet new people, both good and bad, but can you really tell the difference? Who can you trust? Who can you vouch for?

I am weird, I agree.

I am different, thank you.

I am cut out, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

My name is Ezinne Immaculate Akam, the first daughter of my hardworking overprotective father and I wrote this simply because it made me feel good.