by Oreoluwa Fakorede
Could you leave your shell for a little while, please? Could you be here, truly here, like there’s no other place to belong? Could you pause the one million deafening thoughts and listen?
Wake up to yourself, like sleep is a dark prison and the reality of your magnificent existence is the light of freedom. Remember your spirit and what it stands for: the defiant belief that anything is possible, that broken things mend and life can be whatever you make of it. You have made honey out of bitter fruit and something of a purposeless being. You have poured grace from a rock and drawn comfort from a stony place. You regard other selves better than yours, and you have never been ensnared by the selfishness that drives the world. I have watched you love people even when they did nothing more than draw breath for themselves, take from you and add no measure of worth to your life.
You are precious.
Clipped wings grow and the shattered find a pattern to be again. A wall can be a wall even with its cracks, and a door with a broken lock is still a door. Do not set aside your sadness, do not be so quick to wipe the tears like they are things of shame. Everyone hurts, everyone has a sore, we have all just found ways to live with the different kinds of pain that throb in our lives. Your bleeding is not any different, why should it be hidden? The scars are proofs of life, signs of living, signatures of your process and no one else’s.
The sum of your being is of far more value than can be told, and all the random spots of brightness scattered through your evolving story connect to form a galaxy of hopes. People believe because you are, you are the alarm clock that reminds them to get up and be, you spread purpose like the sun spreads warmth across the earth and your small cause has an effect beyond you.
Someday, you’ll see your true self, hear your true voice and tell your true story. The world is waiting with empty drums for ears, listening with the expectation of a dormant seed longing for rain as it lies in the parched earth.
Understanding will come, and all of this will be worth it.
Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija
Ore is a content strategist and self-professed feminist. He has previously written for YNaija and Y!. His literary work explores music, women’s rights and relationships
