LET ME DROWN MY BROWN SKIN


Let me drown

 The hotness of the shower burnt my brown skin. It peeled off the first layer of my expensive skin but I sat still, drowning slowly in my tears and stale flesh. Minutes turned into hours and then to days since I went on dry land, the shower has been my solace because I was too bruised to throw myself into the ocean. 

It’s not that I have not tried but each time I went in to drown myself someone saved me. I would then have to Inhale the stench of hospital antiseptic for days. I am fortunate not to be locked up in a mental asylum because I know I am stable, And I tell doctor Rida that I go to the beach to practice the swimming lessons I learned online, the multiple folds that sculpt her forehead show that she doesn’t believe me but she let me go anyway.

Today I have blocked the bathroom pipe and I shut the doors, letting my beautiful body rust in the bathtub. I let my phone ring because I wanted to see the endless numbers of people who claimed to care.

 Chuma has called twelve times in the last one minute and I don’t understand why, what does he want now, he broke off our engagement last week, he had no right!
He said I was selfish, that I was strange and very defensive. I was innocent of these accusations, I was only trying to protect him from himself.

He had just lost his mother and was crying his eyeballs out in immense pain so I cut his wrist with a kitchen knife so that he could forget the loss of his mother and feel a different kind of temporal pain, pain that will lead to relief.

Salty Blonde Oil Print, oil painting beach fashion portrait

When I lost my job I scrapped my heels till I saw blood flowing from my veins, It didn’t bring back my job but it took away the heaviness I felt in my soul.
It moved the pain to my foot and I focused more on healing that I soon forgot I was Jobless. So I don’t understand why he ran out of my apartment that night, screaming.  He called me a raving lunatic when I only wanted to take his pain away; people are so ungrateful, to say the least.

Even grace has called me multiple times! I don’t know if I should hate her or not because I never told her what happened the night she took me to the club, but she took me to the club that is all that matters right? It is her fault I was drugged and gang-raped. Again I do not know if it was rape or not because I didn’t resist any of them, something in my head tells me I wanted it, that the numbness I felt on my hands and toes was just an illusion I made up to enjoy multiple rounds of sex.

They dumped me near the gutter and Grace found me, all she did was scold me for getting drunk in the club. She did ask if I was hurt but I said nothing, she should have freaking pushed harder!

I grew a fresh kind of resentment towards her; it is the same Kind of resentment I had for my father when He abandoned me after my mother died from breast cancer.
Grace traveled to Greece two weeks later. It is funny how people move on with their lives even when you are in close contact with death.

My skin is starting to feel like soft pudding and my legs are swollen, one would think that after my numerous breast implants, liposuctions and skin-tightening procedures nothing could damage my skin. I watched everything decay slowly.

I remember growing up in my neighborhood with many children my age, all of them had curves or full breasts and really lovely acne free face but I was different and I was insulted for It. Before mother died she said I was a Late bloomer just like her, she said I will grow into a lovely shape In my twenties so I endured the body shamming from the children till I was twenty-one and I had my first butt Implants.

I still did not feel better with the curves and I never appreciated myself till I met Otti, my first boyfriend. I felt grateful that he chose me. I thanked him and kissed him on the forehead each time he beat me or smashed my head against the wall.

The first time it was because I forgot to charge His Phone and the last time just before we broke up was because I squeezed the toothpaste from the middle.
He said he was tired of my Indiscipline and that the three babies he forced me to abort were never his. He called me a slut even though he was my first.

I killed our children before they got a chance to see the world. I am a bad person and I deserve to drown.
My apartment was already flooded with water and It had started to leak out to the door but I am sure my neighbors are too carried away by the hustle and bustle of Lagos to care over water coming out of a snubs apartment. The tap had been running for hours, I don’t know why It won’t just drown me as fast as the ocean nearly did.

Josep Moncada Juaneda.
Photo By Josep Moncada Juaneda.

It is almost time for my appointment with doctor Rida and she has called thrice.
 I never gave her my residential address but she said she would find me if I missed my appointment. I hope she finds me when my soul has departed because this process is taking longer than usual.

I hate that she asks me questions about my past, I hate that she wants me to open up and let it go, I hate that she says nobody owes me anything.

What kind of psychiatrist is she? Of course, the world owes me. The universe and the people in it need to suffer for destroying me and if I can’t destroy them, I will destroy myself.
I could just hang or stab myself but chuma removed all the fans and hangers, He said he wanted to replace them; he took all my kitchen utensils away, now my house is empty.

 It was either that or he would report me to the police; I guess he forgot to cut my water supply too. He was so foolish.
My body feels so weak and I am in serious pain, I see myself hanging on the air and I am slowly slipping away.

The voices in my head tell me to soak my head fully into the bathtub but I am too weak to move.
 I think people are knocking and shouting at the door and I hear the sound of an ambulance.

"Azilla, Azilla " is all I can make out, only Grace calls me by my full name but she ran off to Greece.
It must be my Imagination.
They are trying to pull my door down and I wish the water will consume all of them.

‘’Illa why! I love you" that must be Chuma's voice

"move her in, now... One, Two, Three... Press it in...Let her breathe" I hear Dr. Rida dishing out commands to save a life that I want to be lost.

I thought I had closed my eyes forever but I opened it in the general hospital with that familiar unpleasantness of mint and antiseptic. I opened my eyes to Grace, Dr. Rida and Chuma staring at me with pity and hope. I do not speak to them.

I think mental health is something we must all take very seriously. We are in the middle of a pandemic and this can make a lot of people panic. Learn to check up on people. Tell me your thoughts and experiences on mental health. Have you ever experienced it? Do you know someone who has?

25 comments

  1. Wow, this for sure gave me goosebumps. Her psychiatrist should take a step back and figure out how to get her to open up. Its all baby steps.
    I don't have anyone close to me with a mental illness but i do understand the danger associated with it. Our mind is very powerful that thoughts like this consume our minds, especially when life hasn't been nice to us. Checking up on people is extremely important, lifting them up is something i'm adding to mylife at the moment.
    You see a friend posted a picture of themself, compliment the heck out of em, tell them they look absolutely great.
    Or there's a meme/video u find funny and you want to share that to a friend, tell em you thought about em while looking at that meme or video.
    These won't "cure" mental illness but there are steps i love to bring into action as it makes people feel loved.
    Its all baby step.
    ��

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    1. Your comment is qualified to be a whole blog post. Thank you for this.

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  2. Everyone needs to read this. Mental health is really important.

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  3. I love the way the write up ended most especially the diction

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  4. The writer is amazing with the skill of capturing her reader's attention from the first sentence. Artfully blending sarcasm and mirth. Fast paced and relatable. A good piece!

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  5. Woah... That was such a ride. The interrupted flow from scenario to scenario, flashback to flashback, and the air in my chest as as I read still didn't take anything away from the main issue... Mental Health, we can all give help one way or another to someone or another... And the crazy thing is that we might never how much we helped someone by something we deem little... Even more so, how we destroy them

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  6. The writing is actua amazing,looking forward to making good art piece for your blog posts

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    1. Thank you and I look forward to making it worth your while

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  7. Been long since i read something nice

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    1. Aww stick around and I won't be a long time ever again. Thank you for reading

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  8. A truly remarkable piece.

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  9. Thank you dear Rose for sharing, this is a really thoughtful and insightful piece of art, God bless you.

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  10. Wow...

    This is truly beautiful

    I was caught in your web mgbodichinma

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  11. Beautifully written. Mental health should be really taken seriously, especially in African countries where they don’t believe an African man can get depressed or have panic attacks. From what I could deduce from this story, azilla developed sociopathic tendencies not from birth but from careless situations that she couldn’t control and from unfortunate events... none of which was her fault.

    Most mental health issues are made not carried from birth, so people need to avoid things and people that can trigger mental illness and we also need to learn how to treat people with kindness

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  12. This is beautiful. Sad, beautiful still.

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