Me… Truly.

Hi. Some people call me Panda.

On the day of my birth, I showed up in a little maternity clinic somewhere in Obalende, Lagos State. It states on my birth certificate that I was born to Prince and Mrs. G.I. Fatona around 7:30pm on the 28^th of November… which makes me a Sagittarius. This supposedly means I’m meant to like fast cars, dogs, horses, bikes, water, and really passionate sex and poetry. Yeah… all this is true.

I’ll listen to any kind of music that makes me smile (I’ve been told my taste in music is good *shrugs*). I currently love reading good literature, capoeira, cooking, eating, drinking vodka & sprite, watching anime, having interesting conversations, laughing at anything that strikes me as funny, singing at the top of my lungs, and making my mother smile. When I have the time, I enjoy connecting my pen to my fingers like a leech and letting it suck out the blood of my thoughts to pour them onto the pages of my spiral bound notebooks.

I’m attracted to women with nice legs, skin like liquefied dark chocolate, smiles like freshly blooming sunflowers, and intelligence that’s geometrically proportional to their height. However, I make exceptions for the second criteria… sometimes.

I walk with a warrior’s stride and my head constantly held high. Some say it’s because I’m confident, some say it’s because I’m an arrogant prick. Maybe so; but sometimes it’s because I’m very unsure of myself so when I’m looking straight ahead I don’t have to see the faces of the fears that plague my daydreams.

When I shake a man’s hand, I look him straight in the eye and make my grip firm. I believe it shows respect, both for him and for me as well. And I like hugging women. I’ve been called a hugging machine by some of my female friends (“when in doubt, hug Panda”). Maybe it’s because when I hug a woman properly, I can feel the warmth of her spirit in her embrace and smell the welcome in the nape of her neck. I also like to kiss deeply. Deep enough to taste the desire in her mouth and etch my name on her lips with mine in unspeakable syllables.

I know I’m a writer but, sometimes my metaphors are as under-developed as my personality. See I only started forging it from scratch at the age of 15 when my best friend Remi showed me that being fearlessly me was more important than being what the rest of humanity would have me see so I only started to see through these eyes less than a long while ago. Which is why sometimes, I can’t bring myself to not stare at a person I find interesting. Even though I know it may creep them out, I drink understanding through my eyes and it feels like I can see the person’s character and secrets leaking out of the pores in their face and through the gates of their eyes.

I stutter when I speak really quickly sometimes, or mispronounce my words. Because my thoughts are in a constant jumble in my head all the time, so it takes a lot of concentration to isolate a stream and let it out without interference from the rest that are fighting for airtime as well.

I’ve been called a mama’s boy, and I agree. I tattooed her name on my left wrist so when I’m driving alone I can look in front of me, see it, and imagine she’s right beside me; speaking with that North American accent that belies her Jamaican background. She loved me, sacrificed for me and taught me. She is grounded in me, and since I know how to love and respect her, I expect myself to respect any other real woman that comes my way.

I call myself a shameless hedonist, because I believe in enjoying all that life can offer. Not that I don’t believe in hard work, but I don’t believe in unnecessary suffering or needless endurance of pain. The only time I like pain is when it comes from an injection needle, or a woman, scratching me in bed or biting my back. And, I’ve been told I’m good at what I do when I’m in the sack. But people lie, and unfortunately, when I was a kid I watched a lot of porn from evening to morn and so now, I find it hard to truly believe that it’s my “skill” that makes these women moan and when I see their hips lift slightly upwards and feel them shudder, I shudder at the thought that I may be getting a first class command performance of the “I don’t wanna hurt his pride so let me show him what he wants to see” show.

I’m brutally honest. Even though I’ve learned some tact over the years, I find it impossible to hide behind lies for the sake of protecting another person’s feelings. This is why I can’t bring myself to lie to a woman and say I love her if I actually don’t. I believe it usually is what it is, unless you can decide to make it something else.

People that have heard me sing; ask me why I never joined the choir. I suppose it’s because I’ve never been able to accept that I could be lost amongst so many people like a single flake in a snow storm and my innermost self just refuses to be part of the crowd. Or maybe, it could be the fact that I don’t believe that I should stand on some altar with a bunch of people, claiming to be anointed and singing unto God when I’m not even sure if He still bothers to listen out for my voice anymore.

A lot of people see me and automatically look to me for strength or leadership. This amuses me. Most of the time, I berate myself over things I’m powerless to fix and sometimes I feel weak but I’m just scared that things will go wrong if I don’t do something and I’m not really in the mood to be strong for anyone else. But what am I meant to do? Accept someone else’s lead blindly? I find it almost impossible to take an opinion or an instruction without questioning. I’ve found that the world is crammed full of idiots and it’s difficult to listen to a person who obviously doesn’t know what the hell they’re saying.

I don’t know a lot of things, but something I do know is that I’m a man that doesn’t always know what he’s doing but will stick it out until he does. I’m better than I was yesterday and worse than I will be tomorrow.

Hi. My name is Adeyemi Fatona. I’m 5’10”, weigh 98kg and I’m really dark skinned. I have a funny shaped head and a behind that makes most women go green with envy and keeps me really scared of going to prison.

Next time you see me walking on the street, say hi.