Small Worlds

by Caleb Azumah Nelson

And before the intro is done, the choir magic themselves to the stage, and there’s a microphone in hand, and a grin as the leader steps down, singing her prayer: I’m trading my sorrows, I’m trading my shame. She sings these words, knowing that if we’re in this room, then we’ve probably known sorrow, probably known shame.

I gaze at my parents, and see that a world can be two people, occupying a space where they don’t have to explain. Where they can feel beautiful. Where they might feel free.

It’s here, when I’m with her, I know that a world can be two people, occupying a space where we don’t have to explain. Where we can feel beautiful. Where we might feel free.

Del’s lips make a brief home on my cheek, and we pull each other close. We give no goodbyes – we know death in its multitudes, and goodbye sounds like an end – instead, after our embrace, the soft pounding of fists accompanied by, in a bit, which is less a goodbye, more a promise to stay alive.

It was there that I noticed I only really knew myself in song. In the quiet, in the freedom, in the surrender.

I’ve never seen my father cry, but he looks close. The water is a kind threat, the sheen on his eyes like a glimmer, a sad glint. I wonder what fragment has bled into his day, wonder what wound of his I cannot see. What might haunt him. I wish I could ask. I wish we could be that open.

‘I’m inconsistent. I’ve got a lot of love but I don’t keep anything for myself. And when I can’t cope, I drink, and I can’t drink without getting drunk, which, call it what you want, is a problem.

I’m unable to find a way to say that since arriving, I don’t feel like myself, or rather, I don’t like this version of me, who’s insecure and rarely at ease, who doesn’t know how to dismantle his loneliness.

I am closed off, a total eclipse. I am on the pavement when Del leaves me. I am on the pavement when my father tells me, I don’t need you either. I am unwanted. I cry so much that not even two hands can dry the tears. I cry until there’s nothing left. I climb into bed and cradle my soft body, willing myself to sleep. But I don’t sleep that night because to sleep with grief is not to sleep at all.

I wanted the space to say why I left university: I didn’t feel like myself there. I didn’t like the version of me, studying something I didn’t have any interest in; who, after one setback, had given up on his dreams. I didn’t like this me, who was insecure, and rarely at ease; who felt like he was living in a city with no community to lean on, no one to just spend some time with; who, not knowing how to dismantle his loneliness, cocooned, retreated. In that time, with only myself for company, certain memories would not leave me. The memory of Del leaving me on the pavement would not leave me. The memory of him, my father, leaving me on the pavement, would not leave me. I became even more closed off, a total eclipse. The light in me dimmed. And at that point, I felt so unwanted that I didn’t even want to be with myself. I want to tell him, now, these feelings and memories pushed me up and over the brink, into a place I couldn’t see any possibilities for myself. I want to tell him of Mum coming to visit, having to pull me up from the bed where I had lain for days, sadness pressing down like two hands on my shoulders. I wanted to tell him how I had cried, how I couldn’t stop crying. How the only thing I could say to her was, how come nobody wants me? As I sit here, those hands on my shoulders return, and I want him to be more open, to allow me the space to say, I feel broken, and I’m slowly taking myself apart, so I might build myself up once more. And as part of this undoing...

He’s asking if I remember the good times, and this is why all this trouble with Pops hurts so much; it’s not that I don’t remember, but that I cannot forget.

And I tell him, in the quietness of the moment which falls, what I know, what I feel in this moment: free.