Even Ashes Can Feed a Flame (For The Ink Well Prompt 144: Waste Not, Want Not)

There was a point when we weren't just okay, we were enough.
I had a stable father. We lived in a small rented house with tiles that clanged under our feet and candles that never missed their birthday. I would have thought as a child that nothing could absolutely go terribly wrong. That nothing was impermanent but happiness. That family would never come to an end.

But nothing.

The day that he lost his job, something else went with it, his will to struggle. He broke down in silence while the walls of our home grew thinner with each unpaid bill. I figured it would get better. Days would become weeks, then months. And then, the arguments began.

Loud. Violent. Bitter.

Eventually, he left, and that silence that it entailed was worse than screaming. It was more than just a divorce. It was a breakdown. Of love. Of home. Of hopes. My mother was all things: mother, father, supporter, guardian. But fallible. And fallible things break even when they promise not to.

I was once sharp, observant, curious. Hunger and shame are poor study partners. I stopped volunteering. I stopped grinning. I stopped being noticed. Teachers grew impatient with me. Coworkers whispered about torn uniforms. Members of my family took us to functions but spoke to us as if guests. As if we did not belong anymore.

We were the poor cousins now.
The late arrivals and first to leave.
The ones that hardly ate.

We couldn’t afford to pay for rent. Food was questionable. The poverty shame settled in our throats in the form of a lingering cough. But every morning, my mother woke before morning to get ready for the street. I helped her get out her small stand, the smell of her flames clung to me as a residual smell. That’s where I ate. That was our kitchen, our pride, and our survival.

I found out that there was no resting for boys like me after high school. I took a job with an event organizer’s office as a salesboy. I was paid just enough to cater to transportation alone but spent it to upkeep my mom. I gave it all to her. I couldn’t afford to throw a dime of naira to waste, no way, now that she has given me all that she has to give.

Then destiny shifted her face a little.

I met a photographer, Mr. Ay. Someone who saw something in me that I did not even recognize still exists in me. Maybe it was how I stared at his camera as if it would be a portal to another world. He offered to teach me for free. Asked me to quit my paying job and become a team member of his. I did. Without questions. It was the year 2019. The beginning of something.

I now had an idea of direction.

Yet even aspirations call for sacrifice.

I still helped to open my mom's shop in the morning before I would get to the studio. That made me late. And once my manager said:

"If you cannot arrive early, do not arrive at all. Better yet, I shall pay you ₦500 every time that you arrive late. That’s what your time is worth.”

Five hundred naira. This was the price of this heart of mine breaking silently.
I could not protest. I just stopped going. Pride and woundedness took over for words.
That's how I started, alone, unprepared, but afire with conviction. I have no camera of mine. No clients. No backup. Only hope.

And then, my laptop crashed.

My phone followed. Within weeks, I was invisible.

Potential clients couldn’t reach me. Collaborations I had worked so hard to build slipped through my fingers like sand. They thought I was unserious. Lazy. Forgettable. And in their eyes, maybe I was.

The year 2023 crawled in. I managed to fix my laptop and bought a new phone. But by then, I was behind. The market had moved on. Brands I once dreamed of working with now belonged to photographers who never disappeared. I had no portfolio. No trust. No support.

I cried quietly at night.
I smiled in public.
I prayed in silence.

2024 came with flickers of light, but no fire.
People reached out, but didn’t show up. Clients booked, but never paid. My dreams became a balloon continuously filled with false hope, over and over again only to be struck and popped.

I started to ask questions about life and to myself.

Maybe I wasn’t meant for success.
Maybe I wasn’t good enough.
Maybe poverty wasn’t a curse, I was.

My dreams, to change lives, to lift the poor, to build something greater than myself, were slowly dying in my chest. I stopped hoping. I started just existing.

Then one day, a friend visited. He looked into my face and said, “You don’t even look like you anymore.”

I broke. The tears came before I could lie. I poured everything out, the shame, the hunger, the fear that I had wasted my life trying.

That’s when he told me about a friend who is on Hive community and I was welcome and taught. During that moment everything changed and opened in a different way, just like the multiverse. I wasn’t making millions. I wasn’t famous. But I felt something I hadn’t in years:

Seen.

Hive didn’t erase my pain. But it gave it purpose.
I could write. I could create. I could share.
Without begging. Without pretending. Without feeling less.

Now, I collaborate with what I have, even if it’s little. I build, post by post. I grow, failure by failure. I connect, not with just brands, but with people who see me, real ones.

I’m not yet where I dreamt to be, but I finally believe in hope once more that I will get there, not fast but within time, based on consistency, creating the very good content and connecting with people. Because I have learned how to survive without wasting anything, and knowing every moment is worth everything and time waits for no one. Not my scars. Not my silence. Not my story.

So if you’re reading this and you feel broken, if you’ve got dreams buried beneath unpaid bills and unanswered prayers, I hope this story reminds you of one thing:

Your pain has value.
Your story is not a waste.
And even ashes can feed a flame.
With a tired heart, And a hopeful smile, I whisper:

Ohhhhh! Waste not, want not.

And I mean it, because I’ve lived it.

Image Generated by Ai