Why me, Lord? Why am I still alone? Is it because last year, when Facebook was awash with religiously motivated posts that compelled every reader to “click like and share if you want your prayers to be answered,” I didn’t comply? I have prayed to you for a husband since the very first time a boy told me I was beautiful and I picked an unfortunate blade of grass and chewed on it. And your female children, Lord, they continue to judge me. They say that I must be doing something wrong to still be alone at such a time as this when menopause is drawing really close. So I looked back at all my relationships. I looked really hard, to find out why my relationships have been, in a nutshell, one catastrophe after the other. And when I looked back, it occurred to me that I was the victim in all of this. So I’m writing now about all the boys I’ve loved, to exonerate myself from any wrongdoing, to let people know that bad things just happen to good people. And if they don’t see; if they continue to judge me then I’m going to steal their boyfriends and force them to be in my shoes. The first boy I loved was from my village. His name was Zacheus. Unlike Zacheus in the bible, my Zac was a tall drink of water. He wore his trousers right below his buttocks and he bounced off the ground when he walked. He couldn’t have possibly been cooler. We exchanged love letters, promising to love each other till the sky turns green and the grass turns blue. We were just about to kiss when I felt the presence of another being. It was my mother. She dragged me home and beat me black and blue. She beat me till she was satisfied that she had cured me of all feelings. Every love letter I received since that fateful day, I tore it to pieces and burnt the pieces to ashes. Then I drowned the ashes. That was until I met Henry. We met at a Physics seminar at my school. I was minding my business, still unaware that one day I would disappoint my father by being a writer instead of a pilot. Sorry, father. Anyway, when Henry smiled at me, my heart threatened to punch its way through the chest. We were going to get married and have children. But I think we would have lived on a deserted island where no other boy would ever set their eyes on me. It didn’t seem like a life to live. I like people. After Henry, there came this poor excuse of a human being, that lying cheating *bad word*. And when I was still licking wounds, I fell for a dreamer; in his thirties and still hoping to leave everything and do music one day. So I ran, hard and fast. Now here I am. Love has dealt me a very bad hand. I will find love someday, right, right?
