First, remove the
ring. It might remind you of stuff, you see, like sitting on the floor, both of
you, to a meal of bread and indomie, maybe. Imagine. To be reminded of it, that
first quarrel, how cool and collected, you threw cool and collected out the
window, because this was the one person you’d brought so close, she’d mastered
how to get under your skin at will. So, unable to stand a second more in her
presence, you’d left the room, but only as far as the parlour; lay there and
slipped it off, this ring, put it on the ground, a few meters from your face, to
watch it – watch it like it was some suspicious object a pastor specialized in
countering sporadic attacks of witchcraft had pulled out from under your bed. After
a long time watching it, this ring, you’d taken a deep, deep breath finally,
and slipped it on again…
Brother. To do
what you are about to do, you must take this memory and put it where it will
not be remembered. You hear? Lose it, this memory…of her leaning into you, to
prop you up, on days that weighed heavily on you, of you leaning into her, to prop
her up, on days that weighed heavily on her. Not really a pronouncement, you
know – this ‘two becoming one’ thing – but a process that takes way too much of
our irreplaceable time, much like trees growing into each other. Yes. To forget this, to pretend it did
not happen, to – in fact – attempt to re-write what was written on the ethereal
scroll where Time recorded the early History of the two of you, brother, you will
have to construct very circuitous arguments.
Like – ‘she has
changed’. Yes. You will have to tell yourself – ‘she has changed’ – over and
over again. Yes. Once you make a habit of doing this, your eyes will open and
you will start to see the proof of it everywhere. In the morning, you will see
the folds your children left behind when they wriggled out of her tummy. In the
afternoon, she will call you, and before you answer, you will say to yourself,
‘I bet you she’s calling me to tell me something has broken in the house’; then
you will answer, and what will she say? ‘Honey, we have still not paid the
children’s school fees’. You will drop the phone, and after thinking again about
it very deeply, you will say: ‘Honestly, this is the only thing she is good
at.’ So later that night, when you lock up and come up to find her fast asleep
on the sitting room floor, you will think nothing at all of turning the lights off
and leaving her there. Yes.
But brace
yourself, brother…brace yourself. When you remove the ring, you see, you may
find underneath it a determined circle of pale skin. Yes. Some people say, give
it a day or two, and it will fade. This is true. But not for those who thought
of everything, right down to where they would buy the keg that would hold the
palmwine they needed to take that day to their prospective father-in-law… yes, not
for those who left absolutely nothing to others. If you are one of those, then
– I am sorry – the determined circle of pale skin you find underneath your
wedding ring will never fade. This is true. And you will have to live with it, what
you are about to do…
Sleep well.
Wait! It is in
this way – not in the Disney way of ‘happily ever afters’ – that we will speak
of Love on Sunday evening at 6.45pm at the Main Auditorium of the National Centre
for Women Development. Yes. At NSW, Poetry is our brush, true, but the picture
we paint is of Real Life. Do NOT be late. Believe me, we always start strong. Have
I not said it before?
Sleep well.
Images taken from:
https://dates4usblog.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/removing-ring.jpg
http://media.salon.com/2011/11/brain.jpg
