Toby's Mind

Kondwani Bwalya, Zambia

Last night i had a conversation with Toby

Eyes red, hands shaking, I could tell he was having one of those days again.

“You must have lost your mind”, he said

“Or maybe you’re just lost, you only come to me when you’re lost”.

Let me tell you a bit about Toby;

Toby hates to go outside

He hates the sun

He hates the whole damn planet

Says he wronged the earth and she is still seeking vengeance.

So she blisters his feet, bruises his knees, scorches his and magnifies the gravity around him.

So Toby is not afraid of heights

He’s afraid of falling. “The bitch is crazy!” he says

“She calls me late at night to remind me that her blood is still on my hands

Like i need reminding

Like our memories have not all turned to nightmares and her screams don’t let me sleep at night.

She has taken whatever heart was left of me and she still wants more

Man i said I’d kill her if she took my soul.

So i laid out my body as sacrifice,

I offered her my lungs, gave her my spine, but she still won’t take.”

She hates you “I know that! I told her I hate me too but she won’t believe me

Said I don’t know myself well enough to hate me, but she does and she’s right you know

I haven’t felt like myself for a while now”

Toby remembers the complexion of his old soul

He laughs at the thought that he was once beautiful.

He hates the mirror

Says he hates the person staring back at him

Toby does not recognise his own face

He hates to be called toby these days, he says that name died by his blades

“I killed that son of a bitch with my bare hands!” he says

“And sometimes i can still taste his blood in blood in my mouth

Sometimes i choke.

She has turned to storm and her rain to acid, she finds new ways to torture me as she cries for her first born”

Toby cries too sometimes

He swallows razors to bleed from within because bleeding out loud brings him shame, but he still believes that somebody has to punish.

So he does it himself.

Toby writes poetry

He likes to see his life on paper, something that burns.

Toby writes poetry, but he writes it in his own blood.

Toby has done bad things, but he is not a bad person

The Toby he wanted her to know, was not a bad person.

“Maybe it’s the blood that courses through my veins! Maybe my father suffered the same curses

I have tried to kill these demons you know

But the bastards just won’t die.

Why won’t they die?”

Toby has made mistakes

Lots and lots of mistakes

But so have we Toby... is a reflection of all the darkest parts of me.

Toby

Toby!

Forgive yourself

Bwalya S Kondwani is a 21 year old medical student at The University of Zambia, writer, poet and published author. He is a Zambian citizen and has lived his whole life there.