My thoughts are scattered today so if my writing lacks cohesion and that irks you or causes dissonance of any kind feel free to step out of mind for now and return at a later date when I’d be more inclined to follow the rules of good writing and storytelling.
I’m a sceptic. I doubt things and people. I don’t believe anything is ever what it seems and I look at what isn’t being shown and listen to what isn’t being said. Scepticism has kept me sharp and protected me many times but there are days when I wonder what it feels like to embody an easy-going, naive existence. Today I’m thinking of death and deceit and celebrations I’d like to have but can’t because my resources are limited on this island. I’m conscious of my emotions and my capacity to wreak havoc with my words if should let them loose on those who are naive to my potential. Today I wish I wasn’t an emotional intellect. I want to be naive and do as I please with the protection of “I didn’t know that’s how you’d feel” to cushion the blow of any backlash my words would cause. But I don’t have that luxury. I’m too aware of myself and others to live such a reckless life.
Tomorrow will be the one-year anniversary of my brother’s death. Weeks ago I started writing a tribute to him but I can’t seem to finish it. I’m so angry with him for leaving us without warning. I hate that he fell in love and sacrificed his life for the woman he loved. I wish she had died instead. I know that’s not what I’m supposed to feel. By society’s standards I should celebrate my brother’s heroic act and feel proud of him but I don’t feel that way. I hate that he drowned saving that girl’s life and I hate that his death corrupted the place where I’m most at peace. I hate that I don’t have closure because I couldn’t bear to see them pull his lifeless body out of the water so I didn’t go to see it, and now every time I go into the ocean I expect his body to bump into me as though he was never pulled out and never buried. I’m angry, bitter and sad. I want to scream at him and hit him so hard! I want to tell him how stupid he was to go into that water. I want to ask him if he thinks it’s fair that he broke his mother’s heart the way he did. I want to be the big sister that sets him straight and stops his foolishness but I can do none of these things nor be that big sister to him anymore because he left me. He loved a woman and chose to give his life for hers and didn’t care that he was shredding my heart to pieces in the process.
Today I’m tired and tomorrow will be worse. Wednesday, there’s a hope that Wednesday will be a better day (fingers crossed).
Akeela N Marin 