The Lies You Told Yourself.

The first lie you told yourself was, you were a mistake. They drummed it into your ears day and night and so you swallowed the lie. It made you shrink, it made you cry, it made you hide from yourself and the world, it made you work tirelessly for the approval of men- such a fickle thing.

The second lie you told yourself was, you were ugly. You? Ugly? I don’t know how that was ever convincing enough for you to believe but, you believed it. Maybe the scars you bore within and without aided this lie but, how did you not know that beauty is a very vague term? How did you not know that beauty is whatever you believe it is and that if you dare to believe that you are beautiful, then you are.

The third lie, you whispered to yourself as you silently rocked your small body on your bed that night. You said, “I deserve it, I caused it”. You said this over and over till you believed and fell asleep only to be awakened by nightmares. You should know this, you didn’t deserve what happened to you that night. You don’t deserve to be abused, no-one does.

It might seem hard to believe but it’s the truth. When you pass by a shining surface today, look at your reflection in it and say “I am deserving of only good things. If any good thing can happen to anyone, it would happen to me. Even though bad things happened to me and would probably still happen to me, I am deserving of only good things” because this is the truth.

The fourth lie was the reason why when love came, you took off your shoes and ran like a coward. You told yourself you were undeserving of love and so when “perfect” Chike came, you pinched him randomly to be sure he was real and when you realized he was, you pushed him. You pushed his buttons, pushed him to his limits, and eventually pushed him far away from you. They say true love never dies but, it’s not so, anything that is not nurtured dies, anything.

The fifth lie.

The sixth and seventh and here we are with the eighth “He loves me”. Your eyelids are drooping and no, you are not dizzy. They are drooping because Femi thought it was a wise idea to “correct” you by punching you in the face. How can you not see that such a person is not capable of love?.

The Ninth, “He is not an abuser, he is sweet to me sometimes”. Isn’t it amazing how we carry about scars and still go after people like those that gave us those scars in the first place? Wasn’t your father sweet sometimes too? Didn’t he buy flowers for your mum too? Where did it leave your mother? Her early grave. Didn’t he buy you clothes and toys? Wasn’t he the one that bought you your first phone? Where did that leave you? On the pathway to your own grave.

The Tenth, “This child is a mistake” sounds familiar? No-one is chasing you yet, you are running round in circles. You ask yourself how you got here, I ask myself the same question. The driver on a break with his palm against his face, asks himself the same question. Same with the lady with the stained make-up in the lady’s room. In the end, we are all either running after an unknown future or running from a terrible past.