Our Love Letters
Last night, I opened the green box again, the one that has our love letters. Do you remember the green box? The one you gave me because you wanted what we shared to forever remain evergreen.
In one of those letters, you told me about your dreams. Although we were young, our dreams were valid. You said that you wanted us to build a healthy city where people could live.
Reading it again brought with it memories that I had forgotten, memories that you may have forgotten. They were your dreams but they became mine too the moment you mentioned them to me.
My dreams were filled with this new city, how we would fill it with people. Building a city was never a thought in my wildest imaginations, but you made me reminisce on the moment we would plant the city's first garden. I'd choose the flowers, their colours, the location, and you would plant them. You'd plant while I watered and God gave the increase.
We'd watch the builders erect the city gates. As they carried out their works, we would stroll down countless times along the river bank, across the streets, on the bridges. We would stop occasionally to sit on the rest chairs and branch Soteria on our way back. Soteria would be like White wall where our City people could pray their hearts to God. We'd name the city after me, City.
Should these dreams of ours die along with our love? This was a dream that was far greater than our imaginations. I have asked myself again and again, did we have to end what we had going on?
I am done pretending that our separation was necessary. That we had to be apart so we could move on. You weren’t tying me down, and I am not sure I was, but we could work around it if we wanted to.
I saw in another one of the letters where you mentioned your sweet tooth to me. You told me that your mother used to bake when you were younger, but stopped along the way. You said that people used to say that her sons could have difficulties when they wanted to be like men around their women if they took too much sugar.
And when you wrote that "only my woman would know if the harm was already done before mum stopped baking", it brought so many butterflies to my tummy that day.
Last night when I read that one again, I could still feel the butterflies, the soft aching of my lower abdomen. Oh God knows that I very well wanted to be your woman. The woman you were talking about in that letter. Even now, I very well want to be the woman who discards this theory. Would you give me a chance? Would you give us a chance?
And when you wrote a reply to my response, the one where I had said that I didn't know much about cakes and desserts, you had said, "I don't need my woman to know these things, I could teach her myself. It'll be fun, don't you think?", I spent the entire morning and the morning after rereading your words to find out what you meant by that.
Did you mean that I was your woman? Were you innocently just talking about someone else? I assumed I was overthinking again. Over plotting the graphs again. Well...
Last night, I learnt something that the 17 year old us didn't know at the time. You thought of me as your woman, your girl. You never saw the possibility of someone else being your woman, and so when you casually mentioned your woman in that letter, you were referring to me. As a 23 year old lady, I see it clearly.
Or you probably didn't know that you wanted me to be your woman. However, I do not care what you meant that day, I'd like to push it that you actually wanted me to be your woman. Last night, I caught you, it was a game and you wanted to hide the clues everywhere along our way. Only that you do not realize it anymore. If you've lost track of your way back to me, I hope you find those clues where you hid them.
And there was one of those letters that I could recite by heart. If you asked me to produce another copy of it with the same handwriting, I'd do it.
I could sing it in a song, say it as a poem or even meditate on it like a mantra. In that letter, you purred endlessly about your mum's youthful beauty after finding her old photos at home. In your words, you said, "her tiny little nose looks like yours and I can't help but imagine how you'd look if you had worn the same outfit."
My heart stopped in my mouth when I saw this. It was the boldest thing anyone had said to me. The kindest gesture ever. I could never forget that. You had likened me to your mum. Your mum, Leke!
It sounded to me like you wanted me to be the mother of our children. You and me. When I sent my reply, I didn't mention this, not because I didn't see it but because I lacked the words to perfectly express my feelings. I feared that I'd come out like an open book before you and would be too cheap.
I had forgotten that love, the true one, is the rarest of all things on the earth, how could it be cheap?
But, in your next letter, you made sure to talk about it. I didn't understand why then, but now I do. In that letter, you drew a cute picture, a rough sketch though, of your parents as they stood before the altar and then you said, "do you also think that we look exactly like them? Now imagine we were the ones in those clothes standing before the altar."
Our love letters ended there. I was about to send my reply when you suddenly showed up at my door and said you were leaving, together with your family. No clues as to where you were headed, you said you'd send a letter once you got the chance, but you never did. Never, not even now when we're mutuals on IG and you're unnecessarily single.
However, here’s my response to your last letter: "Leke, if mum’s gown is still available, I believe a little adjustment is all I need and Dad’s suit could be altered a lil bit as well for you. The guests would find their way in and other things would be settled. If we ever get to stand before the altar like that, it’s because I’m marrying you and it’s going to be for life."
I love you! I love your dark humor and your soft crackles. I love how easy it is for you to have fun, like in the smallest things ever. I love how you love God, I love the way you love. I love your kind of love. Your kind of love enlightens, enamors, exposes, yet protects, peacifies, promises.
You do not know it yet, maybe you do and only cover it up, but you do love me. I know it, that even after all these years, it’s me. I’m your woman.
