Regretting Ijeoma

My heart aches heavily as I toss and turn on my bed, unable to sleep. My bedside clock reads 2:07am and I realize I have been trying to get some sleep for the last four hours to no avail. My heart knows no peace, not with this heavy burden placed upon it. How can I lure myself to sleep when these images and thoughts haunts me? The sharp pain I feel as a mosquito lands on my thigh and pierces through my skin in search of blood is a welcomed relief. For days now I have felt nothing but a chilling numbness and emptiness and this new feeling of pain is a comfort to my bereaved mind, a reminder that I am still alive.

Alive did I say? This isn’t much of a life when my waking thoughts and entire being are settled on someone that has tossed aside the knowledge of my existence. She moved on, that was what she called it! I haven’t been able to though, not with me in this confused state. How can I move on when I am being consumed with the shame of what I have done? When my unrepentant heart thumps still for the one that cares not and loving memories clog up my brain, leaving no space for reasonable thinking. I still remember the nights we spent in each other’s arms, those ecstatic nights of passionate abandon. When under the cover of darkness she sneaked me into her parent’s house and right under their noses we made love till the gradual yawning of the sky reminded us another day was about to begin.

The nights when the first crow of the cock was my reminder to get ready to leave as my cloak of darkness was beginning to fade and I faced the peril of discovery. Can I forget so quickly the ardent passion with which she clung to me every time I bade to leave before discovery. She moved on she said, from the memories of the cold night when she had shivered like a leaf dances senselessly in a raging storm. How it was my body that had brought her warmth and how she had held me close to her like I was life itself. All that was a distant memory now, I should move on they tell me but how can I?

Can I undo the wrath of my father I had incurred when I willingly defied him to be with her? Can I wipe away the tears of mother as she begged me not to be a fool and earn the curse of a parent? The curse; I was only too willing to receive father’s curse so long as I had her. Sadly she lies next to me not again as father’s words rings in my ear, “You will someday curse the day you met Ijeoma. You are nothing but a bastard to me now and I do not ever want to see you again as long as I live.” Or what a fool I had been as I had retorted in anger “May the thunder of Sango strike me if I so much as visit your grave!” Mother’s shrill cry was all I heard as I stepped out of the house and thought myself rid of their nonsense.

It didn’t take her two weeks after we eloped for her to get tired of me and of course it didn’t help that she became the object of affection of another man; a man with far more to offer than I could with my being cut off father’s wealth. Without so much as a proper goodbye, Ijeoma left. She left leaving me nothing behind but a note that had but three lines “I Moved On.” Ijeoma left and moved on to another and now as I lie in this bed I realize father’s curse had indeed manifested, as with the tears silently flowing from my eyes I curse the day I met Ijeoma.  

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