STONE

I felt the breeze blow through my hair as I sit on my flats' balcony. My legs swinging from both directions, feeling the blood rush to my toes, feeling my head ooze with pain, it pounding with every thought that came to my mind. Nobody home to see what's about to happen or to stop me from doing it. My mind clear from any thoughts, from voices telling me, criticizing me, screaming at me. I fel free and.................... I want to keep it that way. Having thoughts in my mind like "is life really worth all this ?", "is it everyone that is meant to live ?". Maybe God did make mistakes giving people lives. Why didn't I come here as a stone.

Close your eyes and see a beautiful dark skinned Nigerian girl with healthy natural dark hair, a small waist, thick thighs, hips, nice bust and great ass. Now, open your eyes and take a good look at me. Slim, nice waistline, beautiful hip to waist proportion, a good enough bust for my size and great height ( yh, I'm tall). Can you see any difference between those two. One has gotten to the normal African standards, whereas the other is beautiful but doesn't feel it. Growing up in an environment where being skinny isn't exactly the beauty standard but still being seen as very attractive still confuses me. Because I don't feel ugly, neither do I think I'm ugly. Then, why don't i feel beautiful? No amount of affirmations can make me rethink or understand what people tell me. People praise my body, call me beautiful, envy my stature and weight but it really isn't something they would want. I mean like, let's be real. I don't have thicc thighs, my ass can barely be recognized in my clothing and i feel like a stick when wearing a skirt.

I've been told numerously in school that they love my posture, the fact of I walk like a model. Nobody, NOBODY, truly has an idea of what someone goes through mentally. Obviously, I would accept these compliments and at times feel beautiful but I mean what's the point, 70% of the time I still feel like shit. I have 2 younger sisters and a brother. I'm the eldest in my family, maybe it's because my siblings are thicker than me, maybe because they are more mature or they have a better tolerance mechanism for life. I don't and it's so frustrating. The fact of everything getting to me, having intrusive thoughts about not reaching the beauty standards of this country, of my mother.

I know for a fact that my mother may be the number 1 factor to why I have these thoughts. Always bitching at my weight, constantly comparing me to my younger siblings. On no end to guilt tripping me into being guilty that I'm so skinny. She constantly begging me to put on weight, so that I'll look my age.

As silly, as this sounds this is not my only reason for wanting to be a stone. I mean like let's be real. I don't know how people get to that point of not caring about others before themselves, I don't know how people build this strong mindset for themselves. I'm weak, the fact that I'm putting other opinions before mine is ridiculous.

I have other reasons to add, not just this. I need this to be a chapter I'll be putting to a close. I need this to be a part of the end of something old, I want to be reborn, I need to be.

*THUNDER* I heard a loud crackle sound from the sky and droplets on my cheek. I held on the railing and flipped over the bar with my side, but my shorts got caught on to a hook on the rail and dragging me back, I slipped on the rain droplets on the ground and hit my head. I can feel my head pounding but the pain quickly numbs away and I feel my eyes drift to a close.