My love letter to the corporate world

I sit in my London home with Cuban cigars scattered across my desk, overlooking a driveway full of cars and a bank account I still double-check is mine. Alone on a Friday night, I wonder how we got to this point through all the love, hate, and growth we have lived.

I remember the day I first saw you catching a train into the big city, glammed up and looking comfortable in your skin; I wanted to approach you, but I heard you didn’t like guys that look like me and talk like me.

Then the day came where I built up the courage to leave everything behind and introduce myself while still withholding my recent time with young offenders to make myself seem acceptable for you. You gave me a chance; I guess you were into exotic at the point and appreciated my confidence.

We began dating, and it was a breath of fresh air for me; you introduced me to the world outside my small town, you opened my mind to how my passion for design could be my day to day life, and you bombed me with gifts that leveled up my social status.

You cuddled me in our bubble as I watched the friends I went to school with go to prison, as my best friend took his own life, and when my closest friends left this world on a high. You kept me focused on the world that we created. I even began to replicate Don Draper because I knew you fancied him so much, not realising I have to live on past season 7.

Things were good until we started arguing about the alcohol, the censorship on what I speak, and I began to lose myself to our love bit by bit without even realizing it. So I kept a close eye on your elite friends to see if they could make me feel like me again for a moment, working myself through your circle and starting to gather a reputation as a master of my craft.

You tricked me into thinking you were someone else because you don’t hang out with the others, but I started to see you were all the same, the only difference being the clothes you put on in the morning.

We had achieved everything we planned in our short-term plan and did not know where this relationship would go; when I ended up crumpled in a wrecked car, I knew we needed to change our dynamic.

I decided to rekindle our love in foreign lands. You allowed me to spend more time fueling my passion with no distractions and surrounding me with all your inspiring connections in these lands. I truly felt we were making a change; I felt empowered by what I could bring to the relationship, making us a power couple. But I still felt reserved.

I felt free from your chains whenever I was presented with a platform to speak openly without a script from you, but you forced me to spend more time with you and away from my release.

Sometimes we would meet your friends who understood me, and we created exceptional deliverables in our space of expertise that grabbed the attention of everyone watching. Still, the instability you created deep inside me never allowed me to keep hold of those connections for long. I was forever feeling out of place in your world that was never built for people like me.

Our marriage in love after 12 years has shown me your true colors, the lies about driving change, wanting to tell the untold stories, and being a voice for all. However, I stayed and provided you with what you love while you kept me sweet.

Even though you still wave me about like a trophy, we haven’t talked since you turned a blind eye to my people, and even though your friends shared my same background, their roots were rotten.

I look in the mirror, and I don’t recognize the boy that first approached you anymore, but the fire deep inside me still burns for the passion, and that is why I can not leave you.

Take back the wealth, the cars, and the reputation. Give me back the passionate love we shared at its purest.

Maybe one day we’ll create that vision we always talked about, perhaps we will inspire a revolution that brings waves big enough to bring down the concrete jungle, and maybe I’ll be able to look in the mirror and recognize myself again.

I want us to feel how we were when we were good. You give me short bursts of innovation and revolution but take it away from me again.

Would you please let me speak my voice as loud as it can be?

I want you to understand the DNA makeup I carry from revolutionaries and trauma.

I want you to care about bringing change to the masses and not just filling your pockets.

But most of all, I don’t want you to drag anyone through these toxic cycles anymore where they lose themselves in your love.

This letter is not a suicide note but rather a birth statement to let the fire inside grow more extensive than ever.