We All Matter, And Deserve To Be Seen

So, after I returned from my morning training on last Saturday, my mind went on a trip to the other side (don’t ask me which cos I don’t know), and I found myself thinking about an episode from The Blacklist (I don’t remember the season or the episode), but it was about a guy who was paid to impersonate somebody and was later killed by the person who hired him. When it was his burial time, it was attended by just one women, upon witnessing this Raymond Reddington made a comment about how people live and die without noticed, by the time I could do anything else I had taken my diary and ended up with the poem below:

“For the past two weeks:
I have been dead! While carrying a smile on my face

With a head that’s on fire
A heart of graveyards
A cemetery of Dead dreams: with a ghosts crawling from the underside of my eyes.

For the past two weeks:
I have shown up, nodded without a protest.

I have tamed my voice, as I eat whatever dish that on the table

Without lifting a word off my thoughts.
For the past two weeks:
I have been screaming for help with words hidden in my remarks

I have been scared!
I have been scared to die;
I do not know what goddamn lie I will tell the man on the other side.

So, I paused playing Russian Roulette with the ropes.

Even so, I have been more scared to live

I do not know what I’m about.
For the past weeks:
I have been scared
I heard voices calling at my name
I saw shadows dancing at the corners of my thoughts

It took my whole being keep the knife off my arms.

I have been
Scared
Tired
Lazy
Numb
Haven’t shown up for my body
Yet you call my scruffiness a good new look.

For the past days
My eyes gossiped and gave me out
You blamed it on the hungover;
I have been screaming for help with words clinging on my tongue

The world moved on, she was okay with my silence

While I folded into paranoia
Because, I showed up
Smiled
Agreed without a word.
Hmmmm
Now you call this a poem, while
It is the best way I can tell you about the darkness clouding my head

Playing ostrich with my mind.”
I must say I didn’t know what I was writing, but after sending it some few friends and going over again, I realised there was the need for me to write on mental health again, this time asking that we pay attention to people and get interested in what they do. Everyday we see our family, colleagues, and mates, but when was the last time we sat down to have a deeper conversation with them? The truth is that a lot of are walking around with smiles that are struggling to call our face home, we have beautiful pictures littering social media but we are broken and sad in real life. If you’re reading this please, call someone to check on him or her, don’t ask for anything just checking up to see if they are okay.

A man in my church did something that surprised me during the lockdown period, I was in charge of calling my parishioners to check on them during the lockdown, and I called to check on him, a week later I saw his call, and when I picked his reason for calling was that, I have been calling parishioners to check on them, so he was calling to check on me too, honestly, the feeling was different and inspiring, and this small act of kindness has given the man a special place in my heart. Sometimes, that friend, colleague or family who is always there for all of us is the one with the biggest issues and they use serving others as a coping mechanism, let’s pay attention to people, be genuinely interested in people’s wellbeing and we wouldn’t wake up one day to hear that we lost someone through suicide.

As adey come end, abeg we don’t have to lose anyone to suicide, we don’t want to see another brother or sister breakdown mentally, the load is too heavy for one person to carry, so let us be empathic, kind, and never ever stop positive reinforcement, and if we are to criticise we should be measured with our words, pick a phone and call someone because remembrance is an act of love.

Koffi Adu Flair Demigod @ 12/05/26.

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