The man, who is supposedly my father, who never held me as a baby, the man who actually does not even know my birthday, is consumed by the city life. That is the story of black children in the country, like me. The only close thing I had of him is an old photograph of his glowing days. That is all I knew of my father as a young one. Sometimes I do feel the sense that had I seen my father, somehow things might have been different.

Is it me trying to find reasoning, blame or genuinely trying to find comfort where there seems to be none. Am I like this in general, do I always do whatever it takes to find a scapegoat when I should take responsibility?

My dear friend, Sizo used to say that about me, I constantly find fault instead of taking responsibility. How did I even think of him? When I have never thought about him for such a long time.

My friend, wherever you are, I never meant to break your trust. You’re the only who stood by my side and stood up for me, when the monsters made my life a living hell in grade two. You were there during my downfalls, you were there when I made it, in fact when we both made our parents proud with our flourishing matric results, you were there as a true friend, in fact a true companion I could entrust my life to.

I knew and trusted that you would always cross the bridge or go as far as crossing the ocean for my rescue, if I needed you to. And yet, I broke all of that trust. I started to bring out all the negativity, which we both despised. I can talk for so long about you and I know for a fact that I might bore a lot but I just don’t care, cause with you I had a true brother, I had wished God granted me with from the very beginning. If you ever come across this Tar yam, just know that I can never ask for your forgiveness but bear in mind that at this moment I have come into realisation that you were my only true companion and nothing can or will ever change that.

When I think of Sizo, I wish I could say I had the same feeling towards my father to be able to say, “I love you, dad” but I cannot imagine those words coming out of my mouth. However, none of that matters, as I have said, the women in my life are the best. I like to praise these women because they had no luxurious materials to raise us. The only thing that they had was love. That is where I got love and respect, which I did my best to show it to the universe. Many of whom I tried to show appreciation and love, returned the favour with nothing but a silver plate of piece of crap. But, I’m not complaining because I played a huge role in all of the madness in my life.

***

Tell us: What do you think of this piece so far?