Curse

Curse, It sounds like an ordinary word. Just five letters sitting quietly together, until you begin to think about what it means. Funny enough, it is part of my three names. Yeah, I know. The tongue creates.

But what do you call a boy who is a dreamer, yet never seems to reach the place he truly wants to be?

What do you call a virgin desperate to find a lover, yet somehow never finds one?

What do you call a guy who keeps trying to make things right, who works hard to impress people, who desperately wants to be accepted, but somehow always ends up being kicked out of the picture?

You know what the most terrifying thing in my life is? Reality.

I fear reality.

I fear the real world I wake up to every morning. I fear it because I am weak. I fear it because I don't know whether anyone will ever stretch out a hand to pick me up when I finally fall.

And the strange thing is, I think I saw this reality coming long before it arrived. Even before I finished school, something inside me told me that becoming an employee would be hell for me. I knew that finding someone to love would feel like climbing Mount Everest barefoot. I knew that I would be rejected. And somehow, everything happened exactly as I feared.

My inner world is at war, a civil war. But nobody knows. I have become good at hiding it from the public. People see the outside of me. They see the smile, the conversations, the dreams, the things I create. They admire the person standing in front of them.

But they don't see the battlefield inside.

They don't hear the arguments.

They don't see the soldiers fighting for attention, for love, for acceptance, and for significance.

They don't see how desperately I want someone to look at me and say, “you matter.”

I believe in God. I know He watches over me every single day. At least, that is what I believe. But deep down, somewhere in the darkest corner of my heart, there is a frightening doubt.

Does God really have a plan for my future? I don't want to doubt Him. But sometimes I look at my life and I simply don't see the plan. Even when I try to make my own plans, things fall apart.

I tried it with authorship, I dreamed of becoming an author. I imagined my books reaching people, sitting on shelves, being read by strangers somewhere in the world. But somehow, I couldn't even get a single book properly out into the world, and that hurts.

Because when you spend so much time believing that something is going to become your breakthrough, its failure doesn't just disappoint you, It makes you question yourself. It makes you wonder whether you were foolish for dreaming in the first place.

I am writing this because I want to tell the truth about the reality I am afraid to face, the reality I wake up and live every single day.

This job in Seeta was supposed to be my breakthrough. I thought it was going to open a door. Instead, it became a darkness I feel trapped inside. Geddo became hell, so I ran away. But little did I know that Seeta would become an abyss. Life right now is so bad that sometimes I find myself dreaming about the hell I once escaped from.

I want to leave Seeta. God, I want to leave. But where do I go? I don't have a home to run to. My father never built one. So, I remain here, caught somewhere between wanting to escape and having nowhere to escape to.

I don't want to surrender to the punches of the devil. But sometimes the punches are simply too painful. I don't know how many more I can take. God, I'm sorry for writing this, I know You love me. At least, I believe You do.

I just wish You could tell me what is going on, just once.

Tell me what's up.

Tell me where I'm going.

Tell me whether all these dreams inside me mean something, or whether I have been chasing shadows. I am tired of guessing.

I am not clean like every other human being, I have a dark side. There is a part of me I don't like looking at. Sometimes I wonder whether that is what makes God turn His face away from me.

I try every day to stop, my reflection in the mirror tells me not to do it. But then the desire comes, and sometimes the desire wins. I find myself doing it again and again, even after promising myself that I would never do it again.

Yeah, I'll say it, I masturbate. There, I've said it. It is a sin, and it is one I have struggled to free myself from. Not because I don't know it is wrong. But because, for a few minutes, it makes me forget the reality I fear. I know what people will say. “That's not an excuse.” Yes, I know, and I agree. I am a sinner, and I am ashamed of it.

Maybe that's why God doesn't answer when I ask Him to bless my books on Amazon.

Maybe that's why I don't have a girlfriend.

Maybe that's why my reality feels upside down.

Or maybe a familiar spirit follows me around, maybe it cursed me. Here in Africa, people talk about these things as though they are as real as the ground beneath our feet.

Maybe I am simply confused. And honestly, I pray that I am confused, because I would rather discover that the problem is inside my understanding than discover that I am being hunted by something I cannot see.

Maybe the curse isn't a spirit.

Maybe it isn't my name.

Maybe the curse is the way I have learned to see myself.

Maybe I have spent so much time calling myself a loser that I have forgotten to ask whether I am actually one.

Maybe I doubt myself too much.

Maybe there is still potential inside me.

Maybe the boy who dreams is not foolish after all.

Maybe he is simply tired and needs a break.

Maybe he has been fighting for too long without anyone noticing the battle.

Maybe I don't need to know my entire future tonight.

Maybe I only need to look into the mirror and ask one question:

Who am I, really?

And perhaps, for the first time, I should wait for the mirror to answer.