you will not be fine

you will not be fine.

they are going to tell you that time will heal wound but it won’t,

what you will find out with time is that there’s no healing done.

from the moment their bodies are lowered to the ground,

their memories will rise up to hang over your head like the sun,

it would be as though they left the earth to move into the tenth planet

and that planet would be in your heart.

you will not be fine.

they are going to tell you that time will heal the wound but it won’t,

what time will do in fact is to highlight their memories in various reminders;

the calendar will remind you of more than one important date

and your mind will rewind to memories you can no longer re-create,

today you could feel okay and tomorrow you could feel numb,

the pain could feel like it was only yesterday and tomorrow it could be gone,

then it comes back again after something familiar re-opens the scars and tears up the stitches –

you will never know the number of stitches necessary to hold a breaking heart together

especially when the pain is not bounded by time,

so there won’t be a stitch in time to save nine this time –

time will tell; time will tell you that no one needs a passport to travel to the past,

all they need is enough memory –

a pendulum that moves back and forth in two different time-zones at the same time.

certain moments in the present will take you straight to the past

and you will ask if the statement that God creates people in twos can be any truer,

you would wonder maybe doppelgangers only exist to make us remember those who are gone every hour.

you will remember them in another man’s laughter;

in topics and banter,

in perfection and imperfections,

in successes and failures and the where or the how won’t matter,

because in the burning smell of a food you could remember a fire accident.

so, it won’t matter if this event happened barely one year ago like the death of Obed,

or two years ago like the death of Pa Olawuwo

or three years ago like the death of the Endsars Victims

or four years ago like the death of Edwin Inneh

or five years ago like the death of my friend Fiona

or six years ago like that of Jennifer

or seven years ago like that of Lauretta

or maybe eight years ago like that of Seun Agbaje

or nine years ago like that of Williams

maybe ten… maybe eleven like the death of my father

or maybe ten years ago like the death of Nelson Mandela

you will not be fine 

because every time there is a trigger you will always remember.

you will not be fine and maybe you should stop trying to be,

and instead embrace the beauty in remembrance;

choosing to remember the life that they led,

the legacies that they held,

and the light that now shines yonder.

so, for everyone you have lost,

for everyone I have lost,

and for everyone we have lost, we may not be fine.

that’s why we should embrace the beauty that lies in remembering –

their light, their presence, and their memories.

we will not be fine,

because we will always remember.