Hope has a ringtone. And when it doesn't ring, the silence sounds like a funeral.
Today was supposed to be different.
I'd spent the entire week checking my inbox like it owed me breath. The Rising Voices Fellowship—a small writing grant run by an obscure online platform—was announcing its shortlist today. I had submitted my application late at night, hunched over my tiny phone, typing through power cuts and self-doubt. I'd poured everything into that sample essay. My rage. My weariness. My truth. The theme was "What it means to be unheard." Perfect, I thought. I knew that topic like my own name. So today, I woke up early,
cleaned my room, brushed twice, didn't cry. Didn't beg God either. We were on a break. Still, a small part of me whispered, Maybe today will be the plot twist. Maybe all the failure was just character development.
By 10 a.m., nothing. By noon, still nothing.
I refreshed my inbox. Again. And again. And again. Nothing.
At 3:45 p.m., the blog posted a photo on Instagram—"Meet Our 2025 Rising Voices!" Eight names. Eight photos. Eight happy little bios. Mine wasn't there. I didn't even get a rejection email. Not a "Thank you for applying." Not a "We regret to inform you." Just silence. Like I hadn't even existed in the room where they picked the winners.
That was the part that hurt most—not that I lost. But that I wasn't even acknowledged.
I threw my phone across the mattress. Sat down. Laughed. Not the sweet kind. The broken kind. The laugh of someone realizing, once again, that effort doesn't guarantee reward. That doing everything right means nothing when you're invisible. For a second, I imagined the version of me who had won. Maybe she was prettier. More polished. With a working laptop and a mentor who replied emails. Maybe she didn't use WhatsApp data plans to check for miracles. Maybe her sadness was poetic enough to be funded.
I picked up my notebook—the cheap one with water stains and a corner chewed by rats. I flipped through my writing, and everything suddenly looked childish. Small. Loud. Angry. Too Nigerian. Too poor. Too… me. I almost tore out the pages. Almost.
But instead, I just sat there. Watching the light shift on the wall. And thought:
What if this is it? What if this—this trying, this failing—is my whole life?
What if the "big break" doesn't come?
What if this isn't a prelude to glory, but the full story? I wanted to scream. But instead, I just lay down, and waited for sleep like it was mercy.