You must want to be free.
Etta James’ song ‘I’d Rather Go Blind’ has some of the most heartbreaking lyrics I’ve ever heard. The way its sung is so haunting, so deep, so raw. It’s achingly beautiful. Beyonce’s is perhaps even more heartbreaking. Listening to them both over and over has led me to write this piece of dedicated to exploring them, interwoven with my own personal experience of losing love.
I would rather, I would rather go blind boy
Than to see you, walk away from me child, and all
So you see, I love you so much
That I don’t want to watch you leave me baby
Most of all, I just don’t, I just don’t want to be free
I pray you never have to beg love to stay with you. It is my fervent desire that you will never suffer the pain of kneeling to grovel for one that had decided to leave you. It is such a deeply horrifying reality. The worst part of it is that for those who reside inside these realities, it is the only thing they see fit to do.
Last year, I had the great displeasure of becoming initiated with the anatomy of heartbreak. I know how cold her hands feel as they pushed me time and time again into the darkness. I know how her teeth feel sunken into the back of neck. I know how her eyes bored themselves into my skin. How her breath permeated my habitation. I have also seen her back as she walked away from me. I never imagined that I would miss her. May you never be addicted to pain.
Most of all, I just don’t, I just don’t want to be free
Of all the lines in this song, this is the most haunting for me. What a strange and dangerous thing. To romanticise bondage, imprisonment. To relish captivation and to spit upon the face of freedom. I think about this line a lot. I think about the romanticisation of oppression. I think even more of Ms James, I wonder about what she must have seen in her life to warrant such utterances. It reminds me of a line from Open Letter by WanaWana & Titilope Sonuga ‘i remember that you would not stand/because you had been condition to swim’. What happens when violence and pain are common fare in your life? When that is all you know?
What will make you see salvation and then turn your face away? Whatever it is, may we never see it.
My darling, however sweet the pain of your misery, you must want to be free. You have to desire your own freedom. Revelling in your pain is easy, it feels like the safest place to be. But it will kill you if you stay there. What I have learnt from heartbreak is that you have to run from them and choose yourself. In your moments of weakness when you want to run back to them, bear witness to your pain and stand firm. Take yourself back from them and choose you. I am begging you. If I can do it, you can try. I believe in you. Take yourself back. You have all the power. Like my good sis Titilope has said, “you have all the magic that you need”.
