Dear Marijuana
I write you this letter with raining eyes, quivering fingers, and a trembling soul. I recapture sceneries from the genesis of our fling— your greenish buds told me tales of goodwill. I hear echoes from our first conversations, you promised to ease all my burdens; not add to them. We were friends. You said I shall be sane and firm.
For we were young, wild and devoid of fear. We did not care, in us was a fire that flared. Unbroken reminiscence of our late night tours pierces my wrinkled skin. I relished how long we talked, in you, I found no faults. You did unleash before my sight a world I would have never thought exists, a world of endless euphoria and enjoyable glee spree.
What you sank into my ears was your name, and your indelible fame. Now I’m burnt by your scorching flame. You forgot to tell me about your bare and hurtful thorns. You omitted stories of how many you have wronged. You set the pace, and led me through the streets of some bitter disgrace. Now my family and friends, I cannot face.
Days flew and dispersed, puff trailed puff, your love grew in my heart, it made me forget everything but you. I’m shattered and blue. It feels like my entire reality has ruptured, for you had become my present, past and future. I can remember the day we held hands and walked down the aisle. I found a whole new life in which you failed to tell me I would be screwed.
You lured me to invest my all in your unfruitful ways. You have charmed me beyond repair, only for me to find out that you do not care. I am still in touch with your relatives. I got along with heroine so well, it made my veins scream and swell. Morphine stops by to say hi, mostly at night. They replaced you transiently when my thoughts were low, you are the most selfish person I’ve ever known.
You sneaked into my purse and stole all my funds. Your kids have grown, the older is sorrow and the younger is pain. Please come take them all away. I am broken, jagged pieces everywhere. I’m crumbling in the absence of your company. My head hurts like I’m being dipped in the deepest nooks of hell.
You have become my weakest strength and my fiercest weakness, my fright and delight. You have dissipated my might. Without you, nothing of me remains, just a walking corpse in a maze. I’m lurking in oblivion, it seems the end is near, why did you leave me here?
Shehu Mubarak Sulaiman is a Kano-based writer and poet. He is currently a final year student at Ahmadu Bello University Zaria. He loves to read, write and spend some alone-time exercising his creative muscle.
- CALL FOR SUBMISSION: Dear Yusef: Essays, Letters, and Poems For and About One Mr. Komunyakaa - May 25, 2022
- #SubmitNow: Awaiting Revolution Poetry/Essay Anthology - May 21, 2022
- The Straight Path | Adamu Yahuza Abdullah - May 20, 2022
