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photocredit; cliparts.co
I remember the first day that I saw you.
You just moved into the flat next to mine. I knew we had new neighbors, my sister told me.
We never really caught any face we just knew there were a lot of guys in the next flat.
Then one morning there was a knock on our door when I opened, I saw you and that was when I fell.
It was just there, the skip of a heartbeat, butterflies in my stomach, the whole works. Even before you said: Hi, I’m your new neighbor and I’d like to borrow a boiling ring if you have one.
You just had me at “Hello”.
The always too loud music from your flat brought my sister and I knocking on your door every day; with “Please turn down the volume of your music we are trying to read here”. Easily we found a common ground and weeks later we were dancing to Beyonce’s “ keep giving your love to me” blaring from your flat and spilling into our room. Shamelessly my sister and I asked for a repeat of the song. That was our song, at least in my mind. And I still remember you when I hear that song and I still love the song like crazy.
You were my friend, we always talked and you told me things you never told anyone about you.
I still remember the night we talked till 2am the next day. Just the two of us sitting on the bench outside and watching the moon come out.
I was smitten and everybody saw it, except for you. Until the day one of your friends told you. I’m sure they must have gone like this:” Are you blind? Can’t you see this girl is tripping for you?”
But alas it wasn’t meant to be just because of your one really big flaw: You care too much about people. Always ready to sacrifice.
One of your homeboys had the hots for me which was common knowledge and you just could not be the bad guy and date me while he felt that way about me.
I didn’t want to understand, I didn’t want to see. I was just mad. Mad as hell that you would choose loyalty to a friend over me.
And I never spoke to again after you came to tell me why we couldn’t be.
I went to my little book and wrote this for you, my first of many pieces to come:
Don’t know how It came, can’t tell when I fell, maybe it was there from the first day we met when you said “Hello”.
Now I’m lost in this maze, alone, sad, hurt and depresssed and I wish it was just “hello” and then “goodbye”.
It was like that till school was over and you had to move out.
I had my first relationship afterwards , fell in love, had my first kiss , broke up with a couple of guys after that and then life went on.
Fast forward 6 years later with social media: facebook, mobile phone and twitter inevitably we had to reconnect.
This time it was different. I was different. I was a big girl; I had gone through heartbreaks and relationships not the innocent little girl I used to be.
This time around you were different too. You came on to me heads on. There were no mincing words: you wanted to date me. But the timing was also different. I just knew it wouldn’t work and I wrote this for you then.
You and I are as different as night and day.
We both always seem to see the alternate side of things. Me, one way and you the other. Like the picture of an old woman I once saw and I turned it around and saw a young girl.
Yet something still binds us together.
Like two peas in a pod, like a pair of socks, like two ice cubes in a glass. Just like you used to say.
I have visited all the nooks and crannies of my heart and I found you in every groove.
I can only love you one way- selflessly, unconditionally, blindly and wholeheartedly.
We were in different towns and I just knew you were not ready for the things I wanted at the time. We were not in the same place. We were good as friends. And then I wrote this about you in my little book again. I guess I knew it was inevitable but I just kept deceiving myself that I was cool with being your best friend.
Mr. S.
He is my friend, I can talk to him for hours and it will just seem like minutes. I have a special spot for him in my heart no doubt, I know it, and he knows it too. It’s no secret between us. We talk, we laugh, he tells me stuff and I tell him things I never tell anyone, I can tell him almost anything.
Apart from the fact that he stays in another own miles away there are other reasons why we just can’t be.
- 1. My feelings for him run deep and I’m not sure I can handle being in a relationship with him. I think I’ll turn into a psycho and just work myself up over nothing when he doesn’t call on time, check up on me, etc. now that we are just friends, all that doesn’t really count.
- 2. He is such a nice guy, nice to a fault (at least that’s what I think). I’m thinking he will always put everybody else before me or “us”.
- 3. He smokes and I hate that with every fiber of my being.
- 4. He is just a boy. I don’t think he wants to grow up just yet and take up responsibilities (not that he isn’t old enough though).
Mr. S. just crossed my mind now and I realized one thing I like about him is that he respects me. He knows me to an extent and I can be me around him. I don’t have to prove anything to him because he knows the real me. I just told my friend today that he never asks anything from me (financially) even when he knows I earn more than he does (at least I think so).
You knew that side of me nobody has seen. The poetic side of me. The only one that had seen my little stash of write ups, when you read incurable romantic you just knew I was referring to me and teased me tirelessly about it. I fell in love with Frank Ocean and Amel Larrieux because of you.
It was a beautiful friendship and I valued it. But you kept on pushing saying I was the only girl you could really talk to and you wanted us to take it to a whole new level. God knows I tried to fight it but you were dangling a carrot and I was a bloody rabbit. I just had to take a bite. I was still struggling with these feelings when I wrote:
We Talk.
It is so easy for me to fall in love with you, Real love, the kind I always fantasized about. I know you might not tick all the boxes for me but I will still love you anyway.
I’m trying to hold back , trying to rein in my emotions least they spill out and I’m not able to gather them back again, mold them, fold them back into that space they have been for a long time.
We talk, we laugh and it always leaves a sweet feeling in my heart afterwards: every time.
I know if I let myself go, if I let down those walls , that will be it, I won’t look back and I won’t give up.
But I have to keep those walls up, for now.
Borrowing the dettol advert slogan: if I don’t take care of my heart, who will?
I told myself this for a while until I couldn’t hold back anymore and decided to be impulsive and take a risk for once in my life, to take the bull by the horn and follow my heart.
What is right? What is wrong I do not know? That is how I feel right now: confused, pained and disheartened. I’m not so sure about a lot of things but the one thing I’m sure of is the way I feel about you: It’s undeniable, it’s rock steady, like the constant “k”.
I know I’m good at scorching hearts and hurting even if I don’t mean to but I thought all that would change once I found the one I loved.
I thought I’d love blindly and too much but it’s all over even before it began.
We haven’t tried, I haven’t tried to love you yet.
I know what I want to do, in my mind I know.
I’m just stalling because before I do anything I need to hear from my father up there.
I need to get His feel on this.
I need the sign from him that says “Go ahead child”.
Then I’d close my eyes to everything else. To my sense of standards or what people will say.
I can do it and that is what I want at the moment.
I’m tired of living by the rules. It never did do me any good anyway.
So I said yes and we made it official. That is when everything changed.
I don’t know what happened. I just can’t explain it. I guess it was because the four reasons l listed in Mr. S. Anyway it did. All I can remember is when you told me I should not wait for you, that when I meet someone that is ready to settle down I should go with him. It hurt, it really did. You were ready to let me go just like that? Without an effort without lifting finger.
Who the hell told you I wasn’t ready to wait for you till eternity. I could have waited my whole life if you wanted. I could have given up anything for you. I loved you that much. But when you said that you just broke my heart but I never let you see. I just braved up and said: ‘’sure no problem’’. I was breaking up inside.
Things just went from bad to worse and as usual I ran to my book for solace.
I still cannot feel you. You are with me but at the same time not here. You don’t believe in “us”.
It is hard for me to keep on believing when do not have that faith in it.
It kind of feels empty when we talk now. We scratch the surface not wanting to get deep and personal.
It’s all good, it’s okay. My instincts never fail me and its telling me you don’t dig this at least I’m sure you are not ready to fight to keep it, not even fight, strive, make an effort.
Oh well, what do I know anyway?
It was really bad I won’t lie. I was hurting a long time and I couldn’t even let anyone see. The only time I could be sane was at work when I had a million things to do. At bed time, alone with my thoughts is when I feel it the most. That’s when my world seems dark and dreary. I did not just loose a relationship, I lost my friend and that’s the hardest to bear. I missed my friend but I had to move on.
I finally buried that secret, premature, nipped in the bud almost-relationship with;
One day you will realize no one could have loved you like I did. One day you will realize you could have fought to have me be yours forever.
I was ready to take chances, damning all consequences, ready to stand by you, for your dreams and aspirations.
Loved you for who you are, with all the imperfections that came with you.
It was all for nothing, so don’t blame me when I had to wrap in my overflowing emotions and fold them, tuck them back in place, where they belong, at least for now.
Till when I find the one who is worth releasing them for. I’m not giving up yet I still believe he is somewhere out there and I won’t compromise just yet.
