You don’t know me, not really.
The image you see that follows me
around is distorted.
This dark image that moves in
ways I cannot—
my shadow except
she follows me even into the night.
Like day and night,
gloom and bliss,
Yin and Yang,
we are separate but bound
except without the harmony.
We’re like conjoined twins
struggling against this body we share.
This body that I want to be more
hers than mine.
I let her claim it fully, but she insists
On being generous.
I call her Fab, my own internal joke,
my sarcastic truth,
but you call her me—
to you, we are identical—
you only see the puppet.
Fab has a lot of vices born
out of jealousy.
She wants me for herself.
Like when it rains.
the wondrous rain,
heaven’s disappointment
about my absence outside,
causes a flash of jealousy and she inflames
my joints
with burning pain, that immobilizes me
into my bed.
Then she’s happy.
Like when friends come over
and she makes me forget their names,
or forget our chat yesterday that caused
me raucous laughter.
She makes me doze off in
the middle of conversations,
so, they don’t come back for more
of my rudeness—insensitivity.
She slaps my face, so it burns and aches
and my sleep runs away for days—
even the doctor cannot heal it,
because his touch inflicts the pain
he seeks to know.
My gut runs the race I cannot,
and she has sacrificed many
trees for my comfort.
But for my finances, I would
stop this sacrifice,
bring technology to help,
a bidet—but not for riding.
You don’t know me, not really.
I didn’t either.
The image you see that follows
me around is a part of me.
Fab is the bug of my nettle.
At first glance, I am being pierced—devoured—
a pain even lightening shudders from.
I lose my senses, my thirst for life,
But wisdom comes to
those who persevere,
and I do.
Fab is my evolution to the future.
My pollinator that brings maturity
to my stigma.
How do you know pleasure
if you are a stranger to pain?
How do you know joy
if you’ve not been to the depths of hell?
How do you know contentment
if you don’t study hardship
or its cousin, loss?
To feel pain is to know
you are alive—you
still have a purpose.
I live.
I live.
Every day, I live.
Rosemary Esehagu is a native Nigerian who currently lives in Texas. She is the author of the novel, The Looming Fog. Her poems have been published in Plum Recruit, A Little Poetry, African Writer Magazine, and Elephant Journal. She loves to explore the mind and how external forces play a role in its development and health.