Someday, You’ll Learn to Love Yourself Like God Does – Muheez Olawale

You’ll learn to hug the person you see when you look into the mirror. Yeah, that same boy shuffled into bokeh in group photos, the one sent miles away not to photobomb personal pictures, the one cameras flee from. Perhaps you will learn to agree that God created everyone in His own image, including you, and your reflection should never be denied a smile.

You’ll admit you’re your mother’s son. Even if it distresses her. You’ll sit between her laps, her teardrops softening your afro as she yanks a comb through it. You’ll listen to her grief-mellowed voice dry-eyed, and you’ll nod in understanding. You won’t hide the saliva dripping from the corner of your lips. Neither would you swallow your thoughts when “OK” grows twenty-seven more syllables before you get to the “K”. You’ll turn around, look her in the eye, and read her one of your poems. You’ll wipe her tears when she gets emotional, and you’ll remind her that you’ll cradle her grey head in a future that’s now.

You won’t rush into your room when a visitor strays into your mum’s sitting room. When they ask after you, you won’t slide under your bed with AirPods plugged in and listen to music until sleep robs you of your worries. You will remain in the sitting room, prostrating in greeting to earn prayers and respect like every other kid. The visitor won’t refuse to drink water for fear that your saliva dripped into it while you brought it from the faucet. The visitor will have no reason to douse their eyes with pity when they ask your mum, “how are you?”.  Your mum will confess she’s fine, and the visitor’s eyes won’t disbelievingly dart in your direction.

Spotify will not recommend songs bathed with tear-dripping vocals and heart-wrenching lyrics. Perhaps, you will enjoy heavy kicks and speedy raps. Perhaps, you can listen to the melody of a song before the lyrics, and swing your body first before you sway your thoughts. You have to feel the song before you feel.

You’ll write more than sad poems. You’ll quit seeking inspiration from the dark side of the internet. You’ll look beyond the killings in Plateau, the frauds in Lagos, the rituals in Abeokuta, the combats in Port-Harcourt, the clashes in Abia, and the discord in your heart. You won’t scroll past cute-meet interviews, graduation photoshoots, comedy sketches, and every other video that leaves a smile on the face and a flutter in the heart. You’ll write poems that’ll make your mum smile, and she won’t press you to tell her what’s bothering you.

You won’t glance back when you hear the whisper of the neighbours. They’re not talking about your right knee jutting against your left leg, which you can’t help but drag on the floor. They have nothing to say about your crooked right hand hanging across your chest and your left hand dangling by your side. What more can they say about your contorted face and the drool spilling from your chin to the band of your jersey shirt?

You’ll grow enough courage to watch your favourite team play in the viewing centre. When you try to spiel your football knowledge garnered from days-long analysis of stats, that granite-haired boy won’t shut you up with his hoarse laughter. He won’t cackle that being you and being a fan of a losing team is a cruel act of injustice from God. The spectating assemblage won’t lift their eyes from the screen and pour them on you, their brown teeth sinking into your flesh and brains as they roll off the long wooden benches in laughter.

You’ll reject “stupid” as an adjective qualified to encapsulate your personality. When your classmates draw ugly faces out of the zeroes the teacher assigns to your test scripts, you’ll tell them you care less about what they think, and they should worry more about the bullies they were going to grow into. When your ugly face angers them in the alley leading away from school, you won’t take retreating steps, hit your back against the wall, and yelp as they smack your head, giggling. Instead, you’ll hold your backpack tight, call your wobbly legs to order, and sprint homewards.

You’ll look out the window, and you won’t calculate the chances of dying if you jump off the three-storey building. You won’t wish your father were here to hold you like he did your mum the first time someone mocked her for having a child like you. You won’t pray he sits you behind the settee in the sitting room and whisper words of comfort to you, inducing a spring of coolness in you. Because you know he’d leave soon, and you shall earn nothing as little as a backward glance from him.

You’ll seek love. You’ll send those heart emoji texts to Nifemi. The draft has resided long enough in your Notepad and has undergone more editing than a revised edition. Send it to her one night, shut your eyes, and wake up in the morning to face the smiles or sniggers. She won’t forward your message to the class group chat. She won’t throw her drink in your face to question your effrontery, and other students won’t jeer you in the corridor. You, too, are just a teenager living the life.

You’ll look at yourself without the mirror. The mirror sees only what you want it to. So you’ll shut your eyes and feel yourself as a human. Because you must know, no one shall love you if you don’t.

Someday.

 

Muheez Olawale is a Best of the Net nominee; winner, COAS Literary Competition 2024; winner, NASELS-LASU Essay Competition 2023; winner, LASUSU Essay Competition 2025; and winner, CEF Poetry Contest. He was longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2025, and he was a runner-up at the A.S. Abugi National Prize for Short Story 2024. He has works published in Brittle Paper, PoetryColumnNND, The Kalahari, Afrocritik, and elsewhere. He currently studies English Language at the Lagos State University, Ojo. He tweets and grams @_muheezolawale.