AND TONIGHT, I STAY

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If this was the last thing you read before taking that decision, i hope you know I am reaching out to you right now.

It is 2 am in the morning.

I should be asleep. The kind of sleep people recommend, like it’s a solution and not a luxury.
I am exhausted. Not the cute, “I need a nap” exhausted. The bone-deep, brain-fog, please-don’t-ask-me-to-exist kind. I do not want to feel. I do not want to think.
Stillness is what I wish for. Not happiness, not clarity, just silence. For the world to keep quiet for one second and wait for me to catch up with the riot happening in my head and veins. But of course, the world does not collaborate. It never does.

So I stand at the balcony, staring into the dark like it might blink first. Cars pass by in brief flashes, and I find myself wondering how good the lives of people who can drive at this hour must be. They look purposeful. Like they are going somewhere. Like they belong to the night instead of negotiating with it. The neighborhood is unusually quiet. As if children never argued here about whose turn it was to skip the rope just yesterday evening. As if laughter doesn’t echo here at all. Funny how silence edits memory so efficiently.

Then the small voice arrives. Uninvited but so confident. It speaks in hypotheticals dressed up as certainty. It asks questions it already thinks it knows the answers to. It tells me stories about how replaceable I am, how brief grief is, how life is excellent at moving on. It is very persuasive for something that has never built anything, loved anything, or survived anything.

And then there is the other voice which is less dramatic, less articulate, slightly irritating. The one that reminds me that I have come this far. That it would be deeply unserious to end this story here, at 2 am, tired and hungry and emotionally overdrawn. The one that doesn’t promise things will be okay, just insists that I am not done yet.

I have always found it strange how the mind keeps a catalogue of escape routes. Like a backup plan nobody asked for. As if the city itself knows my thoughts. The junctions, roads, boda boda rides at highways moments that have carried my silence before. Moments where I am thinking of the perfect death plan. I imagine them sighing every time I pass: not today, please.

The thing is, people think these thoughts mean you want to disappear. Sometimes, you just want the noise to stop.

Lately, the real ache has been realising that I cannot be chosen. Not in the ways that matter – by people I know I could turn the world upside down for. The lack of reciprocity doesn’t just sting; it bruises. Slowly. Quietly. Repeatedly. And then come the accusations, dressed as observations. “You victimise yourself.” Ah yes. That classic. Because apparently acknowledging pain is the same as inventing it. Tell me, how exactly am I supposed to see myself as anything other than the problem when it is constantly clarified gently, loudly and consistently that I am?

Some time back, an acquaintance reached out and told me about her struggles. She said she could no longer talk to certain people because she always ended up apologising for how they felt about their mistakes. I understood immediately. That particular exhaustion recognises its own. She asked, “If love is supposed to heal, then why does it hurt this much? Why do even friendships hurt this much?”

I had no answer. I, the storyteller. The talker. The one with words. Nothing.

So I did the only thing I could. I told her to hang in there and assured her I was one call or text away. Which is ironic, really, considering how often we offer others what we quietly believe we are not allowed to need.

Today, I am feeling many things. A loser, because my life is not where I planned it to be by now. A burden because it has been tough for a while, and everyone is already carrying their own wars. I cannot fault people for not being present. They have lives to live. I understand that. I always understand. Perhaps too well that it has made me numb.

And yet, annoyingly and inconveniently, I am still here. Seated on the balcony. Breathing. Arguing with myself in the dark.

The night keeps offering exits like a bad salesman who won’t take a hint. But something in me, stubborn, quiet, almost rude, refuses to take them. Maybe it’s memory. Maybe it’s fear. Maybe it’s hope pretending not to be hope. I don’t know. I just know that I have survived every night that once felt impossible, including this one.

I don’t need answers tonight. I don’t need meaning. I don’t need someone advising me about what to do or not because chat gpt has already done that. I don’t even need peace. What I need is permission to pause. To not make permanent decisions while this tired. To let the world keep spinning without me trying to hold it together with my bare hands. Tomorrow can worry about itself. It always does.

Tonight, my only job is to stay. To sit with the noise until it softens. To trust, even briefly, that this story is not done speaking.

So I step away from the edge. Not because everything is okay. But because, I guess, I am not finished and at least chat gpt is concerned.

@Ulokcwinyu

Written by

Ulokcwinyu Ubia

A writer and arts administrator

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