A Love Language

[zilla_likes]

Some friends will tell you that they love you.

Some friends, the stoic ones, will call you stupid to say they love you. They won’t say it maliciously, they’ll say it in jest. You’ll know all they mean is love. It’s like when you’re chatting up a girl and you make a joke and she says, aki wewe ni mjinga, as she blushes and looks away. She doesn’t need to say, look here, boy, you’re funny and cute and I’d love to sit on your face sometime when you’re free. She just needs to say aki wewe…

A few friends, the ones that were raised proper, in a modern way, won’t be afraid to tell you they love you. But it’s almost always girls that will tell you this because in the twenty three years I’ve lived, I’ve heard male friends tell each other, I love you a handful of times. It’s the fragile masculinity that bounds us. It’s feminine. For us, it will always be a pat on the back (or a punch), a call that ends with, drinks on me next week, bro, or a friendly, f-ck off. That’s just us.

But then, there’s me. My way of expressing love is somewhat grotesque. And I’ll tell you why.

See, all my life, I’ve had a phobia of shitting in new places or people’s homes. Shitting is therapeutic for me. I can sit on the toilet half an hour after finishing my business, thinking and having long profound silent talks with myself. I don’t need a phone in the loo to keep me in there. All I need is my mind.

I have made some of the toughest decisions on the toilet seat. I have come up with blog posts on The Seat. I have done budgets on The Seat. I have thought of exciting pick-up lines on the this Seat.

When I have my phone it’s worse. I have hours of talk time on the Seat as a cool breeze massages my moisty areas where the sun doesn’t shine. I have viewed your Instagram stories (which I know you have too), and I’ve tweeted lots of characters on The Seat.

I don’t know what it is with toilets and introspection but there’s something profound about sitting (shitting) on that seat and ruminating on life. That’s why for me, shitting anywhere else but home is close to impossible.

I remember once I almost died from holding in shit for too long. It was the first week of high school and everything was going fantastic. I hadn’t been bullied, just small harassment that wouldn’t prevent me from sleeping at night. The food was good compared to the fodder they fed us in the shithole primary school I was. And the two-week grace period we had as newbies made us immune to any sort of punishment or chores in school. Only problem was that I hadn’t pooped in a week and my body had become a painful shit cabinet. I was bloated. It felt like at anytime I’d explode into a massive shitbomb. Every fart was a colossal risk because you’d never know what else would slip out other than the foul gas. All this because I wasn’t comfortable pooping in the school’s toilets.

For me, pooping in your house is my ultimate show of love. On a regular day, I would rather hold it until I get home but if I ask if there’s tissue paper in your john, consider yourself close to my heart. It’s a unconventional crass way but it is my love language.