CHEERLEADER

Oh, I think that I found myself a cheerleader, she’s always right there when I need her. Should I sing again? Oh, I think that I found myself a cheerleader, she’s always right there when I need her!

I feel like my throat is bursting because I’m not a singing person, my tongue is already tired, my lips oh my, my belly is empty because I remember my primary school music teacher telling me that great singers sing from their bellies. Enough of the singing just wanted you to know that I found my cheerleader.

 So, a while ago I set out to find a cheerleader of sorts, someone or something that could provide a haven for my heart to reside, a safe landing for my roller-coaster ride from space.

I had some friends who were so much into studying and I really loved their passion. Ray was a medium height guy of dark complexion. His teeth protruded out of his mouth making him look like a rodent. He had nice hair which all the ladies loved to touch but poor Ray never liked that. The only person he would tolerate touching his hair was maybe himself after an apple fell on his head during his Isaac Newton imitations.

Jake was another nerd who was also as dark as Ray. I am also dark so at some point I thought melanin had something to do with your level of intelligence and just to tell you how real my fallacy may seem, Jake had been trying to prove it and I believed in him, can’t wait for him to win the Nobel peace prize. Though lately I don’t hear of the award or are people being too violent? Stay Taliban they say! Discussion for another day.

These two guys understood my level of nerdity, and we really made moves back then in high school. I can’t remember the million times we terrified everyone at Math contest. Some ladies from this school, I won’t mention, had held the title for so many years and had grown some proud skin until they met the three ‘mathketeers’. For a minute being a nerd was the thing for me but during my final year I realized it wasn’t. I just did it for fun and to meet people’s expectations.

After that I was kind of in a galaxy of confusion because I would wake up and see stars all day. I would see planets though I had no plans for my life…see what I did there, ha!

 Everyone was into computer packages but the hell mehn, just from the name how could I do something like that. No offense for those who really loved it, did it and are now dying to tell us their success stories.

I don’t know if it was by luck or mere chance that my neighbor Bobby got a Nikon D750 24.3 MP SLR Camera with a 24- 120mm black lens for his 19^th birthday- you should go check its price you’ll probably die. Having a camera was like being Meghan Duchess of Sussex, like how the hell do you get so lucky mehn. Then there was us who preyed on Bobby as if the camera was ours. Everyone in the hood became a photographer but come on, Bobby was dating my sister, so we were in different leagues with the others.

We went for shoots and videography stuff. Out of nowhere I developed an interest in sunsets and I took them every time they appeared in their full beauty and unfathomable aura. I would gaze through the lens and zoom in to the horizon only to be hit by a red, yet orange round ball which spread its rays across the earth, the way a bride spreads the train of her gown across the wooden-tiled aisle of the holy cathedral. This was like a wedding. I was the bridegroom, the sunset my bride, the rays her gown train and the earth, the horizon, my aisle. The grass could only watch as the universe allowed me to kiss the bride, I would smudge the lens though ha!

I know we are the light of the world but damn, can you compare yourself to that?

I would tell you about how I also got into cooking but then I would leave out the more interesting part where I decided to fall in love with these amazing beings we see around. We not only see with our eyes, but also with our heart when it skips a beat in excitement and shock, we see with our mind when it analyzes the spectacle we’ve just been graced to witness. Ray and Jake would probably vaporize me for not speaking of the science behind the dilation of the eyes. Bobby would chew my head for not mentioning the lens used, Bla! Bla! Bla!

I know you all want to know who this lucky girl is, not sure why I call her lucky. Do you believe she was lucky?

Talk about juice! At first, we all get captured by looks. Curvaceous was she, her skin as soft as silk. Her complexion was just the perfect chocolate, with no alterations. When I saw her, it was like she was being transfigured. She glowed like the evening star, she twinkled like the billion stars in the sky at night. She caught my gaze, but I did not batter, she knew the royalty she beheld so she understood my situation. I approached her without wasting any time, call me a go ge’er coz me a go ge’i.

‘’Hey gal, I hope you know CPR coz you just took my breathe away.’’ A heavenly smile snaked out of her lipzylips as she looked straight into my eyes as if the pickup line had no effect on her. I had to shoot another one. ‘’So, aside from taking my breathe away, what do you do for a living?’’ This one nailed it because I finally managed to make her brandish her white teeth that looked like little angels in a parade. It says in the Holy Book to only think about what’s pure and lovely…so from that day all I thought of was her.

She became my cheerleader, the fuel to my soul, the missing ingredient in my recipe, the Sun in my universe, the brains to my emotions, the everything to my nothing, the only population in my country, the light of my world, the salt to my earth, a city set up on my hill. Some say Saturday is for the boys, others say it is for the Lord, but I say Saturday was for my queen. She would stand at the balcony of my castle with a poise of greatness as I watched from the glass door. She had dominated my world.

One evening we were walking on some lawns, her hands strapped in mine. We stood facing each other and the sunset rays on her face amplified what I saw everyday but with a more profound twist of colors. She opened her mouth to speak but I could hear nothing, only her lips subvocalizing. I tried to read her sweet lips, but I was woken up by some sheets of paper, which I later learned that it was a newspaper, that landed on my head. As I woke up gradually, I could see my dad’s gigantic lips moving in slow motion and I took a minute to lip read them instead. They said something like, ‘Go to your bed, stop sleeping on the couch!’

That was how I lost my cheerleader! My señorita! What pains me is that I lost it to a dream. No surprise for a moment in the dream I was asking myself if that was really me, ha!

Nowadays I write stories to make people happy, sad, or motivated. When I pick up a pen, I feel more real, no dreams this time round. I feel like a pharisee holding a quill, drafting some new law, with a complete package of their pride.

I feel like a president addressing a nation but now on paper. The paper is my world. White as it is, it gives me hope of light at the end of the tunnel, because I am using a black pen. I am the king of my world, the paper is my queen, my audience the citizens.

I finally found my cheerleader; she is always right there when I need her!

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