Haze

Lethargy seeped into my bones as I tried to stand up from my bed. I don't understand why I get so tired these days, maybe it's because I have not eaten, I wondered. I looked at the list of things I had planned to do since beginning of the week.

I laid back on the bed and thought about my life. Where am I going to? I can't believe I can't even tell what I will do next after my masters degree. Of course, getting a job sounds like the most logical idea but I didn't feel the satisfactory zing that goes with expecting something good.

I didn't know was crying till I turned my head to the pillow and felt the wetness against it. I dabbed at my eyes quickly. I could the heaviness on my heart get heavier by the second, then the dam broke loose. I curled into the bed and cried. I cried for everything I had lost, for everything I hoped to find but seem unreachable, for the death of my mother.

For years I felt the weight of filling the gaps my mother left. My elder sisters depend on me for their emotional needs, my elder brother turn to me for emotional support and my dad thinks that my ways are not straight. I am the last child and I have to be strong for everyone, yet I doubt they know it.

I am blessed with the ability to have a long list of young men chase after me. Yet I see it as a curse. I called my dad but he didn't answer the phone.
When he eventually he called back he said; "So Jasmine you have grown too old to call you after? You could stay a week without hearing from me?"
"I am sorry Daddy but I called but you didn't pick."
"You are lying to me." He ended the call and I started my bout of cries all over again.
Oh mother, I don't know what to do.

-Victoria Ukpaka