My body is shaking in contemplation of g(G)od
- Ado Aminu Aminu
- Jun 13, 2022
- 4 min read
Updated: Jun 16, 2022
My whole body is shaking in contemplation of g(G)od. It started with my hands, in the tip of my fingers. I had just taken a sip of my beer (the second since I walked into this bar) and was about to stretch my hand to place it on the body of the guy I was praying to heal.
Zazu had just met me at a bar in Tejuosho market. He told me his name because I asked why his hair is coloured in almost all the colours of the rainbow and he replied that it is the name of his hairstyle and the name he bears. Additionally, he knows Portable, the singer of a song of that very name.
Here is what you need to know about Zazu (I will type Z henceforth):
- Z is a pleasure seeker in every sense of the word, and not just any type of pleasure seeker but the dazed kind.
- Z is unshackled from the hold of the social rope that says this is as far as you can go, yet rather than shed the manacle he broke years ago, he has wrapped it around himself and stayed put where he chose because, Gods be damned, he is determined to be alive and enjoy it.
- Z has a thing for flamboyant men that damn society’s constraints and more than that dare to see him and command the world to do the same.
I am thinking of God, of the Gods that brought Z to me at this dingy bar in this slice of time-space. I am thinking of a mother with loving kindness, a mother that could have been thereabouts thinking what chaos her child could be wreaking with his rainbow hair and mindless pleasure seeking that often gets him into trouble.
My hand now on his shoulder, holding down the surge of his dread because even as audacious a man as Z has his limits in an open market populated by bigots he fear could turn spiteful and mob his fragile frame for daring to allow the kind of flamboyant man he adores in his secret heart to touch him openly.
I am holding him in place and searching his fears for an origin that could be anything from the feet of a mother who may truly love him, but who also fears for him in equal measure, to a lover who jarred him by taking all the love he gave and then some, stolen when he desired to give no more. This 5’6 man with the audacity of a 1000 giants who brings grief and joy in near equal measure to a world that he wanders awed, exhausted and confused.
It is this fear that is the origin of all 3 malaises even if he doesn’t know it. And in finding its origin as I surf his mind with Gods’ urging, I hope to rid him of all malaise that he may flourish in his own slice of heaven.
I am sitting in contemplation of Gods, of Zazu, his fear now morphed into confusion and a weird kind of delight. My eyes held firmly in his drowns him in all the love he knows he misses. From his mother and all his blood ilk who can’t bear the shame of his choice of being. From a country that presents closed doors at every turn and calls it freedom. From lovers held and abandoned but never forgotten because the imprint of pleasure they left on him still awakens him fully every now and then from the daze he chooses so he doesn’t remember the hurt they left in their wake.
I will walk away from here, my eyes say without saying, they may laugh at you for some time for sitting with a crazy person who promises to heal your sickness with the touch of their open palm on your shoulder, but you will be freer still and in time they will begin to see you how you wish to be seen.
My whole body, now done with its performance of healing, shakes itself to a full posture. My contemplation of Gods, of mothers far and near, mothers who love with condition and those that do without, seizes my erect body fully, and I dance to the heavens that they may look down and see the confusion they wrought in humanity.
“Look, Gods,” my hand to the heavens commands, “see the children you gifted the world’s richness and their confused longing and sad unkindness,” my bent back calls, “heal them if only briefly,” my crazed dance beseeches the Mother, “heal them with a slice of loving kindness in their hearts if only for the moment I am here.”
I am thinking of Gods, of mothers, of source, and my joy is eternal and I hope so will everyone’s be in some time-space here or way from here.
Ado Aminu Aminu is a nonbinary writer of human curiosities. When not reading, writing or venting about how the patriarchy continues to ruin everything, you will find him daydreaming about his next cup of Hibiscus tea. You can follow him on Twitter - @Pettymuse, for rants and bants.
I have read this 4 times. You're a terrific wordsmith