EDITORIAL
Random Day in 2017.
“Hey, how are you”? First Message
Wednesday, March 16, 2022, 9:14 AM
“PRAY FOR"ME"—Last Message
Open Letter to Abu
Dear Abu. Nope, that’s way too formal. You will probably laugh if you hear me refer to you like that, so let’s do this our way.
Heyyyyyyyy Buddy!!! Yep, that’s more like it. How are you holding up?
If you must know, I am not doing so well and probably will not be for a very long time.
It’s been exactly one month and two weeks since you left, and I refuse to believe you are gone. So, I’m just going to talk to you like you are at the other end of the phone. This thing I am writing, whatever it is called, should be something about your life, the bond we shared, or your struggle with sickle cell disease, or your writings, and you would think, considering how much I know about you and how well I know you, that would be easy. But it’s not. I have no idea what I’m writing or where this is headed, even now that I'm writing it. Apologies to anyone who is reading this.
Do you still remember our first meeting? It was in 2017, and I was participating in a spelling bee competition. We had only known each other for a few weeks then, but you came out to cheer me on. For Abu back then, coming to a place with that many people was way out of his comfort zone, but you came for me. I always tease you about how you stuck to the wall the entire time and tried to make yourself as invisible as possible—scared that the world would devour you. Afraid that people would see the real you, beneath the kid who has struggled with sickle cell and given up on a world that seems to be against him. Beneath the person who wants to save himself, put up a wall between him and the rest of the world. Beneath the several nights of insomnia and sickle cell crises. THE REAL YOU. THE REAL ABU.
Fast forward: we became closer and closer from that day onwards. For me, you are like a rolling ball of surprises. There is so much about you that the world has yet to discover because of how well you hide it. Your mask—that's what you call it. The way you compose yourself when you are around your family, me, your friends, or strangers, a completely different each time. It is always about looking out for them and helping out in whatever way you can with family. I saw the poetic football lover Abu with your friends. The one who can tease Sunny about how much he’s in love or argue with Ayouba for hours about anything arguable. With me, it is my best friend. The Abu that will tell me anything, no matter how weird it might sound and won’t think twice about talking sense into my head or calling me out when I am wrong.
The more I spoke to you, the more I understood you and why you made certain decisions. I realized how easy it is to judge someone when you don’t know them but only know about them. You are in an arena, and life is your opponent. So as anyone would do during a fight against a superior opponent, you gathered everything you could use as a weapon to win the battle, and you found your biggest - poetry.
Poetry, for you, is more than self-expression. It’s a weapon. When writing, you let your guard down; you can be vulnerable and have control. For once, life isn’t the main character, you are, and your words are the only thing that matter in those moments. Writing makes you feel like you are winning the battle because you can spit in life’s face and get away with it. People think you write about your sickle cell and depression struggles, but I like to think you write about your battle with life. Your poems are like updates on how the match is going. Sickle cell isn’t you; it isn’t your disease, and neither is depression. They are one of life’s weapons against you. And if I do say so myself, you handle it like a pro, this fight.
You always tell me that death should be the least of our troubles as humans. Instead of people spending their entire lives in fear of something inevitable, they should be spending it living, not just breathing, you always say. You tell me many times that you want to live, not just breathe, and you want the same for Caro and me. I’M PROUD OF YOU. You wrote a chapbook, touched many people's lives, became my best friend, stayed in school, and did all this while fighting this battle. I am so proud of you.
I’ll be writing again soon because there will be so much to share. Also, your number doesn’t work whenever I try calling it, and I have to stop myself in the middle of a text many times and remember that you won’t see it. So this will be OUR new mode of communication. YOU ARE MY PERSON, NEVER FORGET THAT. LIVE BEST FRIEND.
Love you, ugly.
Buddy.
Korpo M. Selay
Editor at Large / Editor for Abu Sherif II Chapbook Series
