Weakness

Weakness

I, the one that is strong, yet weak. My eyes tear, my legs tremble, at the sound of my own thoughts. Weakness. Not only in the mind but in the body. What makes me frail? What makes me wail to the Gods that rule over my imagination? I am frightened. I am terrified. Terrified of my own inclination. I have not lived long, yet I wish to stop. To not toil, to not fight. Fight who? You may ask. The answer is clear. Have you ever acknowledged a tree? Each limb, stretched from its body. Longing for the light, the water that brings it life, and the air that enlivens its very spirit. Clothed by its own offspring, nourished by its individual drive to maintain longevity. This is everything you would think necessary to keep alive. But you fail. You lack the ability of reason. For a tree does not speak, it does not think and it does not rest. Yet, she is told, time after time to sleep, to talk and to ponder her animation. But you forget, my mind does not sleep and she does not want to talk.

She forgets that she is living. Living for others, living for more than she may know.

Today I cry, tomorrow I laugh but forever, she doubts. Doubts her reality. She is hesitant to believe, yet gives herself away freely to those in need. Those who are just like her. Watch, as tonight she lays in wait, and the battle begins, thought after thought. Washes her, like wet rain. Cleansing her of dust. “ Relief!” she cries, fully aware that the pain resides in her weakness, her inability to distinguish what is right, from what has always been done. This is her greatest fault. “Weakness!” she shouts. But she is not weak. For this is not weakness. She is strong. In fact, this is what makes her strong.

Her fear protects her. Her tears comfort her, and her thoughts create her. She is who she is because she falls short. Resembling the wood that fractures, yet still persists to extend, in hope to one day reach greatness.

Nicole Okorocha

Illustration by Mattie Butler