GAZING OUT AT THE DISNEY PRINCE

Before I start, I would like to say that I am late to the party that is called Kito Diaries. I stumbled on this community in June and I was in awe that such a world exists. I was like, where have y’all been all my life? I am introverted, really very reserved. And that personality makes it hard for me to find ways to unburden myself of my aches and pains. And so, I am very thrilled to have this forum where I can share the things I have so desired to tell somebody. I commend everyone who has shared their stories and experiences which has held me spellbound as I devoured the archives of the blog. The faceless people whose experiences and comments have inspired me – Mitch, Max, Delle, King Bey, Khaleesi, Chestnut, Dennis Macaulay, Chizzie (yes, even Chizzie), Colossus, Obatala, Trystham, Absalom, and James, and all the rest of this community whose spirit makes me want to say: “Thank you.”

And to you, Pink Panther – the ultimate thanks. You are a light.

My name is Blair and this is my story.

I come from a family of six: three boys and three girls. I am the second son and the fourth born child. I was born and raised in the rugged city of Onitsha. Despite the city’s reputation for breeding youths who are typically wild, rough, street-smart and engaging in almost every vice known to a Nigerian, I didn’t turn out to be what one might call an Onitsha boy. I grew up quiet and reserved, generally staying away from trouble.

I grew up in a public compound, not the face-me-I-face-you kind of compound. It was a large compound that had flats and at the backyard were the single-room apartments. I had childhood friends in this compound, but none of them set me on the journey to my self-discovery until I met him in school.

Somto was his name. And I met him in our Primary One. He was light-skinned, handsome with brown eyes and small, white teeth that flashed attractively every time he smiled.

I didn’t understand what I was feeling at that age, but I died every day for this boy.

In the classroom, from the front seat where I was always seated, I would always steal glances at him multiple times before the close of school. I thought about him so much, it began to be an obsession. He was so often in my mind that my academics began to suffer. My performance dropped each term because all I did was think about Somto in the class, at home, in church, and anywhere else you can think of a child my age would be. I know that sounds insane, but that was my life at that age. I lived and breathed Somto. And it wasn’t as though we were friends; he bullied me whenever we interacted. I obsessed about him and I didn’t know what it was I was feeling nor did I have anyone to talk to about my feelings. All I knew was that I liked Somto to the death of me.

My dad loved to iron. He could do the ironing for the entire house. It was just a favorite pastime of his. But even with my dad offering this service, when it came to my school uniform, I would always sneak back to the ironing table when everyone had gone to bed for the night to iron my uniform again. Why? I wanted to look good for Somto, and to my young mind, I was the only one who could iron my clothes to the way that would look perfect for Somto. I figured that if I looked my best, maybe Somto would finally notice me. Maybe he would like me. Maybe he would finally see me the way I saw him. Maybe he would stop bullying me and maybe take my hand in his so we can go out for break together.

And instead, what did I get for my efforts? A compliment from my teacher and her effusive presentation of me to the class as the neatest student in the class.

Who had time for that when I wasn’t getting Somto’s attention?

Even as I am writing this, I don’t think I am doing justice to just how obsessed with Somto I was. I began to give him my lunch and snacks, just so he would be kinder to me and be my friend. Be mine. He was like a terminal sickness to my existence. It was like I lived for him. At that age, Somto could have told me to do anything for him, and I’d have done it.

Somto was a ruffian. He was a very rambunctious kid, always playing rough, always topping the list of noisemakers. He was one of those kids that, after watching some Jackie Chan or Jet Li movie, would come to school the next day to practise those moves on other students during breaktime. Even though I liked him, I resented his rough plays and tried to stay away from him whenever he got feisty like that.

I remember one breaktime when in spite of how much I dreaded it, I allowed myself to be cajoled into playing a karate game with him. Because of how brutal he usually was with his games, he’d managed to scare off his friends that afternoon and I was the sucker left to do his bidding. I didn’t want to play with him, but I gave in after some persuasion from him. Even though, somewhere in my heart, I knew this would not end well. (LOL. You know when you are a fool for love and he says, “Trust me, you are safe with me.” But you know you gonna die anyway.) When we got to the field, I could feel my dread mounting, trying to crush my love with common sense. And before I could get into the karate stance, my arms and legs positioned for ultimate action, this little muthafucker had lashed out with a heavy punch to my tummy, a blow that brought me to my knees and stinging tears to my eyes. I froze as I dropped to my knees. I felt like I was going to die as the pain of that blow seemed to shrivel my insides.

Ah, the things we do for love. God! Just imagine what I was going through in the hands of my Prince Charming. And I was being his punching bag. Why couldn’t he be the Disney Prince who would sing to me while I watched and swooned into his eyes from my castle window? Why couldn’t he take my hand as we walk into the orchard where he would give me true love’s first kiss?

But no. I wasn’t getting any of that magic. I was on the ground, pain shooting through my tummy, hot tears rushing down my cheeks. And he wasn’t even properly apologetic. No sweet, tender apology. Instead all I got was a brusque “Sorry na! Is it because of this small punch that you are crying like this? Ina eme ka nwa mummy.”

God, I didn’t know what hurt most, the physical pain of his punch or the emotional pain of his lack of commiseration.

Then he asked me to punch him back as payback. And I couldn’t. I was not an aggressive child and I could never hit the love of my life. I simply got up and walked away from him. I didn’t speak to him for days after that, but I still loved him.

Then we got to Primary Three, and I was a lot more out of my shell than I was a couple of years back. I played more, had more friends. Somto was still there, but we didn’t hang out much. I had become close friends with another boy, Chikeluba. I wasn’t attracted to Chikeluba; Somto was still very much the only one for me. But Chikeluba was my buddy, who often saved me from the bullies. We became inseparable and did everything together.

Then came a day when the teacher was rearranging our seating positions, and just like that, Chikeluba and I were separated to different corners of the classroom.

Upon seeing this, Somto let out an exclamation: “Yes! I like it!” He stood there by his seat with this joyous expression on his face, clearly enjoying the stark misery on my face over the separation from my friend. I was broken. How could this boy who I loved so much enjoy the things that made me sad?

Chikeluba and I stayed friends until Primary Four. After that class, I didn’t come back to the school. My parents enrolled me in another school that was far away from my former school. They’d gotten concerned with my poor performance in my former school. They wanted me to improve and felt the school wasn’t giving me the best. And just like that, I lost my friends. I lost Chikeluba. I lost Somto. As the days turned into weeks and weeks into months, Somto began to fade away from my consciousness. But not entirely, because he still lived on in my memories.

However, without the distraction he posed, I quickly picked up academically. As an adult, I can appreciate just how toxic I’d allowed Somto to become to me. It felt like each day I went to school was because of him. And he never saw me that way.

After Somto, I graduated from crush to crush. In Primary Five in my new school, I came to know Ebuka. He was like Somto 2.0. Fairer than Somto, rough player, leader of the bad boys in class. We were not friends at all, and he was madly in love with one of the girls in our class.

But that didn’t stop me from going home at the end of every school day to imagine Emeka’s hands around my shoulder, his face close to mine, his breath fanning my face every time he bent to kiss me. Emeka stayed in my dreams until I finished primary school and wrote my common entrance exam.

Then in my JSS1, along came Nze. Nze had the most beautiful, thick eyebrows I’d ever seen on a person. It naturally carved atop his eyes in a way that a makeup artiste with an eye pencil would aim for and never achieve. And he had a jaw line for days.

But alas, the god of love was just not kind to me. Nze was nothing but a bully and I was his favorite target. He was worse than Somto and Ebuka put together. I remember one day a verbal fight broke out between us one time after school and this boy beat the shit out of me. Oh, how I cried.

I had a run of bad luck with boys, always desiring boys who would rather torment me with their fists than love me back with their hearts.

In JSS3, I met Somto again. I was on my way back from school with my brother and a friend of ours. The three of us were chattering away, when he suddenly materialized into my line of sight. He was walking toward us with his friends, presumably on their way back from school as well. My world froze the moment I saw him, and then everything shrank into a pinpoint focused on him. It had been years since I saw him last and yet, the rush of emotions and the pounding of my heart felt very familiar.

I stopped talking to my brother and friend. I was simply walking along beside them, staring ahead at my first love. And then he saw me and we locked eyes as we drew closer to each other. It was such a powerful moment for me. I felt everything around me charge up. As we drew closer, I felt the tension heighten around me. My breathing hitched. My heartbeat stayed on the fast lane.

We kept looking at each other until we walked past each other. And then we were still looking back at each other from time to time until we disappeared from each other’s sight.

I would not encounter Somto again until many years had passed. It was on Facebook last year. From a brief skim of his profile, I could see that he had turned into an absolute hunk. I was thoroughly thrilled to see him again after all these years. Without even sending him a friend request, I simply barged into his DM. mind you, there was absolutely nothing untoward about the message I sent him. Obviously, we were never lovers, so the message I sent him was from one friend attempting to reconnect with another old friend. I was aware that a lot of time had passed, and I reintroduced myself to him.

His answer stunned me. But only momentarily. He said he didn’t remember me. But that was OK. I would help him remember. I fetched our Primary One third term party photo, which had everyone in my class in it, with my lovely teacher standing over us. I drew an arrow pointing to where I was in the picture; then I took a snapshot of it and sent the attachment to him. I also mentioned the annoying nickname he used to call me back then.

Surely, he would remember now and there would be a flood of enthusiastic “Long time no sees”. And we would chat back and forth and reminisce and forge a more mature friendship.

But the Universe had other ideas. Somto read my messages and never replied. I waited a week, staring at that message that had ‘Seen’ attached to it, giving him a chance to take time out of his busy life to respond.

He never did. Even though he was frequently online, he never responded to my message.

And that was when I realised it was time to lay Somto to rest. There was nothing to see here. There never was. Whatever I imagined would happen between Somto and me was never going to be. I would never forget him. How could I? He was the first boy I ever loved. But all that had to stay in the past.

And so, I deleted the messages I’d already started regretting sending to him, and that was it.

I haven’t been very lucky with love. Sometimes, I feel as though the reason I haven’t felt this powerful rush of emotions I always dream about is because of my introverted nature. I mean, nothing exciting ever happens to the boy who is incredibly quiet and can stay indoors for weeks.

However, through all this struggle to find love, I have only matured into the acceptance of my sexuality, instead of loathing and doubting who I am. I grew from the little boy who didn’t understand what he felt for the class bully in Primary One to a young adult who is secure in his attraction for guys. Sometimes, in my wild imaginations, I dream of a world where I can live my truth, and have everyone be OK with it.

Written by Blair