(Mother Me)

“Phill, What’s your ideal girl? What kind of a girl are you looking for?” They asked me.

“I’m looking for a woman who can mother me.” I answered.

As soon as I did, they all burst out into hysterical laughter. Maybe I gave out a wrong answer. Or my response was tragically amusing. For a moment in there, I thought to myslef that I was funny. That I had mastered the courage; the aura to make all these prying eyes laugh at my words. Perhaps it never made sense. As I stood there, being laughed at with 300 heads or more, I felt like a dumb kid who never gets the simple maths right. The kid who, whence was asked what (1 + 1) equals to, he said, equals to eleven instead of two. I just didn’t get it at first. Was it that I said I was looking for a woman and not a girl in my response? I do not know.

As the laughter dimmed away, a voice ricocheted out of nowhere.

“Hey yooh, Phill, you still missing your Momma tits?”

This sent the crowd into a high pitch laughter. My seven year old self would pick up his books from the locker, hide his face and take off from the classroom, tails between his legs, head to the washroom and start sobbing. But I am grown now, I do that no more. I slowly resumed my seat head bowed down in a wry smile, I figured maybe they never understood me. They never have.

They wanted me to dish out the qualities of the ideal woman I’d love to be with. Pardon me. They meant an ideal girl for me. They expected me to toss such qualities as God fearing, humble, hard working, decent, not a smoker nor a drunker, Honest, charming, independent, understanding, responsible, who knows how to cook, and those shit that comes along with such packages, but I wouldn’t give them that. Maybe if I did tell them they’d be happy, they would rise on their feet and adulate me. But I worry for them. I pity these boys and girls. I worry for these fools for they know not the difference. I worry for them because such qualities doesn’t stick. They fade. And whence they do, poops, it all goes away.

So dear wife, this is what you should know about me. I’m not smart. I’m not dumb, but mostly I am dumb. I’m afraid of sleep, ’cause when I do, I breathe like a bear, I scare myself off. I am my own nightmare. I am my own boogeyman. Saliva drips from my mouth, and when I wake I find terraces of dried saliva from my mouth all the way to my nape. I swallow the fresh ones too. To me it’s not a big issue. I guess I’m unique that way. Finding uniqueness is rare these days. I do not drink, but I fancy whiskey. It’s bitter taste. The nourishing feeling it revitalises. I smoke less often, nothing excites me as the thread of smoke puffed. When you find me, stick with me.

Dear wife, do not love me. I curse you if you do, then it shall be the end of us. Do not love me in ways that my past lovers and concubines ever did. Their ways are feign and last less. Their ways are simple headaches solved by the swallow of a painkiller. Do not love me for you, to flaunt me all over your peeps, with photos and fake captions and blatant emojis. I implore you not to love me like lovers in their teens, who spend time rummaging over who they slept with last and who they shall next. Those who still fancy the first meaningless kisses from those they are bound to forget in few years. Do not love me like Juliet, that’s a tragedy and I don’t want to die young. I ain’t Romeo.

Instead mother me. Let me be the foetus that grows in your womb, and whence you give birth to me, let that bond never die. Mold me inside of you like mother Africa, amidst the hues and cries holds her own. Be proud of me even at my worst when the world looks down on me. Fiddle me in your fingers, like a child, let me feel your desire to see me grow old and senile in your eyes. Mother me in ways that no one has ever done, except my mom who long ago abandoned me in the crevices of this earth, saying, “go on son, find your own.” For if you do, then out of us we shall curve plenty of beautiful kids, a replica of you and I. I hope you do understand.

So when they asked me, “Phill, What’s your ideal girl?What kind of a girl are you looking for?”

I stood. Dust off my shoulder and said.

“I’m looking for a woman who can mother me”

They didn’t laugh this time. They were puzzled. They didn’t understand me.

“I’m looking for a woman who we will spend time arguing about which species of animal to pet. A cheetah? A cat? A dog? Which kind? And not the kind we’ll argue about such stuffs as, why is your ex texting you? Who is that guy? You have feelings for him? Life is short to waste it ”

Maybe they’ll understand that.

So dear future wife, I miss you already. Are you a cat person or dog person? I’m just curious. I’m asking for a friend.

****

As written by Phill Ibsen

( Master Of Descriptions )

A Heart_Art_Poetics productions

2018