By BELLO Moshudat Morenike
“I don’t remember deciding to become a writer. You decide to become a dentist or a postman. For me, writing is like a gay. You finally admit that this is who you are, you come out and hope that no one runs away”. -Mark Haddon.
I didn’t wake up one day and decided to wield a pen; I was chosen by the pangs of pain and grief. I’ve known pain right from when I was a teen. As a girl who grew up in a polygamous home and couldn’t feel what father’s love was all about. I was drowning in the pool of loneliness and rejection. I had lost my dad at the age of 14 and was slowly sinking into depression. The following year I lost my grandmother who was a mother figure that raised me right from when I was a child. It was a time when dark emotions deposited their venoms in my heart; tightening my throat and threatening my ephemeral existence. Then there was a blank sheet of paper and a pen; several scribbles later I’m here writing—the only solace I have.
When people ask me why I write, I usually tell them my writing was born out of pain and grief; it was like a woman giving birth to a baby by a Cesarean section. The baby (me) survived but it left its scar on the mother (poetry). My poetry was too dark that I feared it was beginning to affect lives negatively. It wasn’t what I wanted; scarcely what I needed to feel better with myself. I couldn’t help the emotions; I write to expose my grief for what it truly was and the facade I wore behind my smile.
But then something changed. The wave of depression hitting the country was increasing on daily basis. I saw myself heading for that path but I was too greedy; I wanted more from life. I started dwelling on happy thoughts and saw myself asking what the purpose of life was. Why did people come into my life only to leave when I’ve learn to love them?
All these questions started a new era of beautiful dawn for my works. I stopped referring to myself as ‘dark writer’ and then I stumbled on the answer my soul desperately wanted. I needed a new reason to write, having unlocked the labyrinth to my gruesome thoughts. I found myself asking the question again “why do I really write?” This time, it finally hit me—in all its truth and rightness!
Then I boldly say that I write not for those that understand the deep meaning of pain, but because I can create a world that makes up for the maladies of present. I write to annihilate darkness from the places that light refuse to touch. I write because I see almost nothing else I’m good at; so in my palace of ink, I call the shots. I get to give life even to those undeserving of it. I write to write wrongs.
I write because I love the sound of words when it curls up from the lips which retell them. I write because words soothe; and only those who have passed through pains could describe it and make it come alive in mere words. I write to bury pains, regret and tears because it offers overwhelming solace.
I write because I’m immortalized in my own words and untouchable to the vicissitudes of life. I write because words are like tunes which linger in my tuneless heart. I write to change the world, one line at a time; to help people believe in love and life again and to have a reason to hold onto the threads of life.
I find peace in the peace I offer to people through my works; it’s a mutual feeling.
