St. Mgume on DopaNite

01 Mar, 26

22nd February 2026

She was here today.

She seemed in a good mood — or maybe I just assumed she was because there were no mood swings, no sharp edges, no sudden storms. Everything was flowing smoothly. Predictable. Safe.

At some point, our conversation drifted into one of her vivid monologues. The kind where she paints a full scene .
She was building something intimate.(Or I assumed she was)

And I was drifting.

I’ve realised I have this tendency — once she settles into speaking at length, my mind detaches. Not intentionally. Not maliciously. It just… leaves. I catch fragments instead of meaning. Words instead of emotion.

The last thing I properly registered was:

“…looking at me in the eyes whilst administering slow strokes… ARE YOU EVEN PAYING ATTENTION?”

And truth be told, I wasn’t.

And the worst part is not that I didn’t hear her.

It’s that I knew I hadn’t been fully there for a while.

St. Mgume @iammgume

01 Mar, 26 (E)

This isn’t new. It reminds me of Nora — that dinner, downtown by the bus terminal, where, halfway through the meal I excused myself, reached into my pocket, and realised I’d left my bus ticket on the table instead of the fifty. I had been Distracted. Detached.

Present in body, elsewhere in mind. It felt like she was delivering some kinds of eulogy for one of her famous tiktoker or makeup artist(or whichever "trendy train" she was obsessed with at that time)

I joke that in my defense she’d carried some cash and learned never to go to dinner penniless — but beneath that humor I am seeing in myself apattern: people aren't easily gonna be adjusting to my inattentiveness.
The truth is harder to admit.

I don’t just space out because I’m bored. Nope... A bored person doesn't set up the date, plan everything to the letter and pays transport

I space out when things become charged. When intimacy becomes real. When someone is asking — without saying it directly — for my full presence

St. Mgume
@iammgume

Maybe I retreat because it overwhelms me.
Maybe I disengage because I’m not fully invested.
Maybe I’m afraid of what it means to truly be there.

Maybe I AM A BAD PERSON and I should make peace with it already because from what I have come to know, Calm doesn’t equal connection and proximity doesn’t equal presence.

Tonight, what lingers isn’t the motel imagery or the missed cue.

It’s the realization that I keep showing up halfway.

And halfway is starting to cost me more than I pretend it does.

But what if I'm over thinking this relationship stuff and what if I'm about to run mad , just like my stepmother's prophecy, while I was six, and these are the subtle but cumulative habits that will eventually result into everything going down the drain.

What if I was never meant to find love but I instead...

Nevermind! I will figure it out for at the end of the day I AM A MAN and I don't have the luxury of crying my "emotions" out..

Besides, What are emotions, in the first place, huh?

01 Mar, 26 (E)

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