Startled

An essay by NATWANGE DEBORAH NGWIRA

You startle a lot in your sleep, which makes me curious about the realities that follow you in your dreams, the ones that chase you so much they almost wake you. It makes me wonder about the things you hide yourself from but also the things you hide from everyone else. Did you know? That you startle easily when your eyes are closed? 

I wonder about the stories you have in your bones, the experiences you relive when you’re alone. You intrigue me, you blank canvas. 

I want to learn why you feel safer when you’re not sharing yourself, what brutal pain is it that has pushed you into being a silent observer? 

I want to know why you ask so many questions when you seem incapable of answering any, of mine or anyone else’s. Because I’ve seen you with people. And you never say more than you have to. Are you afraid of people, or are you afraid of yourself?

Your efforts are very obvious, the ones at hiding. You’re terrible at making it look inconspicuous, which amuses me because how can one look so fearless yet be so full of fear to share? Are you hiding yourself? Or are you hiding everyone else?

As someone who has hidden her whole life, this intrigues me because it makes me think you’ve only just started hiding; you weren’t always like this. Which makes me even more curious about the pain you’ve experienced that’s changed you. What mountains have you had to overcome? 

I want to learn you; I want to learn why you laugh so easily and hide so willingly. I want to hear stories about how you got the scars on your legs, who taught you how to ride a bike and how many times you were beaten as a kid. 

I want to hear you talk, which you do so easily, which I enjoy so easily. But I recently learnt that you also don’t talk when you’re upset. I recently learnt that you don’t like to admit that you’re upset, when I upset you. 

I want to learn what makes you upset, aside from me not answering the phone the whole day. I want to learn what bothers you and what triggers you. I want to learn about the many men you’ve been, the ones you’ve become and had to unbecome. 

I want to hear about your day so much that I feel like a part of it. I want to be a part of your day. I want you to send me pictures of everything and nothing, not for any reason but because you genuinely enjoy sharing yourself with me. I want you to enjoy sharing yourself with me. 

I want to meet more of your friends, who all seem different from you. I want to learn why they mean so much to you. What joys have you celebrated with these people? Why do we spend so much time with them?

I want to hold your hand, and watch you laugh with them while casually cutting up some meat to put in my mouth.I like this, how you feed me and hold my hand so softly—a habit of yours—feeding and holding me softly.

Unlike you, your friends talk a lot- about you and everything else. I want to meet more of your friends because I want to meet all the versions of yourself you hide through them.

I want to understand which part of your life finds fondness with these people who can’t seem to shut up about anything: their wives, kids, work and, to my pleasure, you.

I want to wear tiny dresses and go on dates with you, flirt and tease you the whole night, go home, and make love to you. I want to go dancing with you.

I want to have luncheons with you, to cook whilst we listen to Malawian music, or your music which changes depending on the day you’re having. I want to cook with you, to dance with you in the kitchen, to kiss you in the kitchen, and to abruptly stop kissing because we will burn the food if we don’t stop.  

I want to have plenty of orgasms for you, and I want you to cum in me. I want to sit on a toilet anxious about a pregnancy test whilst you anxiously look at me on one late afternoon in February. To breathe with relief at a negative test only to continue fucking because we do it so well.

To have wine and make jokes about each other’s anxieties, outside on that couch of yours as we watch the sky darken with my feet in your hands. 

I want to hear you cuss as you slide yourself into me, to watch you roll your eyes, the way you do when you’re enjoying something, hot goat soup over the stove, me in the back of your car- to hear you call my name as you breathe heavily into my ear Fuck, I missed you. I want to feel missed by you.

I want to hold you in the middle of the night in December as thunder and lightning shake the ground beneath us. I want to listen to water trickle down the veranda while in bed with you. I want to kosha the mbaula in the kitchen while it rains heavily outside because we are so hungry, but lightning took Zesco out, and we don’t want to order takeout. 

I want to wake up to the smell of coffee in your house because December mornings are so much better with coffee. 

I want to be in pyjamas and hear all about your day. Because you know I’ll listen, mostly to hear if they are women trying to be cozy with you. But honestly, I just want you to come to me and talk. I want to listen to you talk. 

I want to go hiking with you to those fancy miniature falls in the north and take a picture of us kissing at the base of Ntumbachushi Falls, knowing we are freezing moments and time, creating memories we’ll probably never share with anyone but ourselves. I want to take a lot of pictures with you. I want to kiss you a lot. 

I want you to learn me too, to hold me when it rains, not because I’m scared or anything, but because the rain makes me cry. The rain reminds me that even something as massive as the universe needs to cry. I want you to let me cry. 

I want you to listen to the many stories I have to share about my upbringing. I want to tell you these stories carelessly well, with you listening carefully well, so well that you can almost imagine yourself back in time, there with me. 

I want you to laugh when I tell you about the time when a seven-year-old me almost fell off a bridge on a family camping trip at Chawe Inn in Malawi, a trip that made me fall in love with Malawian music and hate bridges. 

I’ll tell you that I passed out the moment I felt my body move. That my cousin had accidentally pushed me over the rail, but my dad reached for me before I could fall. I woke up to the sound of Bwezi Langa by Kapirintiya, which was the doctor’s ringtone, and I wondered how there were doctors and Malawian music in heaven. 

I want to play you, Bwezi Langa, as we pass bridges, literally and otherwise, because I need you to remember why I hate bridges and why we always include some Malawian music in the playlist we make for our road trips. 

Because there is something about almost falling, almost dying that has remained with me since that day.

I want to tell you about how I got the scar on my left thigh, the one you’re always playing with when I wear my short dresses. A measure of how short my dress is, you say.

I want to tell you about the strangeness of  scars. That I find it strange how scars grow with you, as though stretching themselves to exist on your skin in time, reminding you of the many lives you’ve lived before now.

I want you to remember when you touch my thighs, as you measure the length of my dress, most of them always above the scar that I got this one from a nail digging into my skin. 

My cousin and I, the same one who pushed me over the rail, were running away from a Chinese man whose shop we had stolen make-up from. There was a shortcut, only if we managed to jump over the wall fence, so we jumped, but when jumping to the other side, I felt my flesh tear and separate, blood soaking my leg hairs. I was 11 years old, and I could not walk for two weeks.

I want to tell you that I’ve always been smart because it was my idea to steal the make-up and escape using the shortcut. I want to tell you that I knew there was a risk of getting hurt, but I did it anyway because I really needed to get that make-up for the fashion show at school the next day, which I never even got the chance to attend. 

I want to tell you about the three dogs that have bitten me before, that have done nothing for my phobia of dogs because I want to adopt as many as possible someday.

I want to tell you about the time I hit a man when I was learning how to drive. I was 16, driving home with my dad, using a route I’d used every day for a month before the accident. I remember this vividly well because It’s impossible to forget the day when you nearly killed a man.

I want to tell you that I still don’t know how it happened, that I don’t know how the steering wheel directed me to hitting him and kicking him into a drainage ditch. That my dad handled the situation quickly before a mob could gather, that he dropped me off at home and only showed up in the night. 

I want to tell you how I pretended to be brave and casual to my dad when he opened the door, as though I didn’t spend the whole day crying, hoping the man was alright.

I’ll tell you that my dad said the man was alright, that he had only hurt his leg, but he’d walk again, and all was well. 

I want to tell you that I’ve thought about that accident many times after that day, and I still think about it every time I make a turn when I’m driving. I think of the man, the steering wheel and my dad- would he have told me had the man died? Would you tell your 16-year-old daughter she killed a man?

I want to tell you about how I discovered lasagna to be my favorite food the first day I ate it at a seven eleven. I remember this because it was my eleventh birthday, the first time I went on a date with my mother.

I want to tell you how over the years I’ve developed admirable respect for nshima, which makes sense because I’ve had lasagna five times in my life, so what do I even know about it?

I want you to hold my hand, kiss my forehead, and tell me I’m the prettiest girl you’ve been with. I want you to tell me that I’m crazy, that you like my crazy, and that you see me when you look at me. I want you to look at me, to see me. 

I want you to go grocery shopping with me, in a different town, Livingstone maybe, on a trip where we’re whoever we decide to be. To get back to our cottage after a long day of being tourists, too tired to cook anything, so we made coffee and cuddled on the couch only to wake up at 3 am because it started raining, and the rain made so much noise against the roof it startled us. 

I want you to watch movies with me, to go on picnics with me, dance and play card games with me. I want you to learn me. That I have trauma, and I have fears, like crossing bridges and climbing or jumping over walls. I want you to reassure me. 

I want you to be excited about me and for me. I want you to call me when I'm on a work trip somewhere without you, telling me about what is going on at work and who angered you or made you laugh that day. I want you to video call me showing me the tomatoes you got on your way home,even after spending the day at work with me.

I want you to be intentional, sensitive, and kind. I want you to be present, to be generous. I want you to get me flowers in November for no apparent reason, with wine and a thoughtful note full of inside jokes that take us back to moments we both lived so beautifully.

I want to fall asleep in your arms when I go camping with you. I want to go on road trips with you, and occasionally find ourselves lost in the middle of nowhere, and we can’t stop laughing about it. 

I want to have arguments with you on an odd day in July, blame it on my period and be so secure that it’s an argument we’ll fix and make jokes about, an argument we won’t have again because we are not repetitive with our undoing.

I want you to show me how to see you, how to make you feel seen. Your pain, your joy, your shame, and everything you hide so well, I want to see you. 

I want to see the mundane things you do, to know all the little things that make you particular, like how you can’t function without music in your ear, which means you’re always humming something. Or how you always watch The Big Bang Theory through clips on Facebook, even the episodes you’ve watched before. I want to be able to guess what you’re doing when you’re silent for some time, a sign of fondness, of familiarity and a life intentionally well shared. I want time to know you.

I want time to slow down when we’re together. It always feels like it moves a little fast when we’re together. I want it to move slowly so I can watch you dance a little longer, hear you sing a little louder, and let the kisses and soft touches on my skin linger. I want time to slow down for us because I’m impatient with time; it escapes me. 

I want to learn things from you, like how to hide myself or how to hide that I’m screwing the man I’m working with.

I want to watch you work, which you do so well. How you always seem to know what to say to convince donors to fund the project, how you give me impossible tasks that I end up executing. I want us to work together because I think we do it so well.

I want to tell you that I like how you stare at me when we are alone; I can tell you think I’m beautiful by the way you stare at me. I want to tell you that you thinking I’m beautiful, makes me feel beautiful.

I like how you try not to stare at me when we are  not alone,  how you steal glances at me in meetings as though you’ve not seen me naked next to you. Or how we never say too much to each other at work, mainly because we are too busy texting about what we should have for dinner later that night.

I wonder if you enjoy the secret, does the adrenaline of smacking my ass in the corridors when no one is looking excite you? Would you get jealous if another colleague told you they fancied me? Because I get jealous every time the women in the office talk about you. 

I want to tell them about how we kiss all night, how we dance in the rain when it’s cold outside and how you give the best foot massages. I want to tell them that I am the one who throws away the food they pack when they make advances on you, that you love my cooking, and I’ve sucked your dick in your kitchen before.

Instead, I listen and laugh when they ask why you’re not married yet, why you don’t have kids or why you never sleep with any of them. I listen to their theories about the type of women you probably like, and I wonder if I fit the description of any of these women. 

I wonder about your taste, too. Have you always preferred younger women, or is it just me? Do you prefer short, dark women, or is it just me? I’m hoping you’ll tell me that none of it matters because it’s always been just me. 

I want to listen to you sing your remix version of Chibaba every morning, your after-shower anthem. How your voice switches deeply when you say the ash and bob your head while applying petroleum jelly to your face, which reminds me that the remix version you sing is objectively so much better, but no one can confirm this because you don’t sing anywhere except in your house.

You could’ve been a singer or a musician in another life, a life where we probably would’ve crossed paths less often. A path where I’d attend your shows and I’d just be a girl, one who doesn’t watch you sing every morning.

I want to lie next to you, hear you complain about how itchy my braids are on your skin, and feel you pushing them away from your face while still making sure I don’t move away from you.  

I want to feel you holding me and moving close to me the way you always do, following me to the other end of the bed when I move, as though it’s an abomination for us to sleep apart in that big bed of yours.

I want you to know that I like this- I like feeling  that you want me close to you, even when you don’t say it; I know this because you called your sister to get a bonnet for me. But I like feeling you frustrated behind me when we sleep, so I only wear it when we fight.

I think I want you to wake me up in the middle of the night. You don’t wake me up in the middle of the night for anything—which I should be grateful for, I guess—but I don’t get much sleep with your generator snoring sound in my ears anyway, and you refuse to sleep far from me, which sometimes makes me wish you’d wake me up in the middle of the night for something, anything, even just to talk.

I want your bedsheets and pillows to smell of me, so on the days I’m not in bed with you, you can sink into them as you slide to my side of the bed and feel me there. I want you to know the sheets will smell of me because it’s unusual for me not to be in bed with you, so my scent is never lost to imagination.

I want to have two toothbrushes in my bathroom because sharing a toothbrush is cute, but we both know better––thank you for sharing yours every time I forgot mine, but I want to forget my toothbrush in your home and get a new one for mine.

I want to tell you that I like how strange my house feels when I get back to it, how empty it feels because we're always at your house instead.

I want you to know that I like my house, but I also like that I get to say very few goodbyes to you and more see you laters instead.

I know you feel the same way about your house when I’m not there with you, that’s why you pick me up every night after you go out drinking with your friends.

I watch how you drive off when you leave me, I’d know you’re looking forward to seeing me later. 

I want to tell you how I miss you every night I sleep in bed without you. That I miss hearing you snore, and startle next to me.

I want to tell you how big my single bed feels when you’re not there for me to turn to or move away from. I wouldn’t say it aloud (something I’ve learned from you), but I’d rather sleep listening to your noises than have it any other way.

So yes, I want to spend more nights listening to you snore and complain about how itchy my hair is because I know I get to hear you sing Chibaba in the morning. I want to wake up next to you.

I want more time scrubbing your back in the shower, getting dressed, and rush eating breakfast with you. I want to taste more of the food you make, aside from the grilled pork we have every time we are drunk or the eggs with carrots we have for breakfast every morning. I want us to enter shopping centres together and hold hands as we go through the grocery list because your house only ever has bread and pork, and we never really eat there.

I want to watch football with you, wear our red or white shirts or whatever the colors are for the particular game, drink your simba beer and ask you silly questions to distract you from your intense focus. Honestly, because no one should be that focused on TV, which reminds me that we were watching football the first time you kissed me in public. 

Someone had scored a goal, and you jumped up from your seat and kissed me so hard I almost fell from the seat, not only from the energy but also from shock.

It was not strange that you kissed me; it was odd that you kissed me so easily in a place where all our workmates were. I want more of those pleasant surprises that have me almost falling off the seat, knowing that even if I fall, you’re right there to fall into.

I want to be something to you, something worth holding, worth being excited over, and something worth respecting and thanking God for. I know we can’t be everything to each other, but if we are something and we are very good at that thing, that’s enough. I want us to have each other and for that to be enough. 

I think I want realistic things, and who cares about realism anyway? I want us to want each other, even on the days when wanting each other is difficult. 

And maybe I’ll hurt you, or you’ll hurt me. But fuck it, there’s so much fun to be had.

So I hope you’ll teach me how to hold you in your sleep, and I hope you’ll tell me all the stories that you keep. 

I promise not to be startled when you let me in.