We Remain (XVII .I. MMXIV)**

  The first time I met you, we smiled, you led me into the house applauding how different i looked in person compared to photos. we sat in the confines of your living room; conversations over glasses of 'Chateau Petrus wine' turned into laughter over dinner at that delicious little soba spot in SoHo. I felt as alive and warm as the buzzing recess of that restaurant. you just seemed like the average, all too simple type and Somehow, I knew you were going to be a ton of fun.

You suggested we head out and drive around town, unaware how terrible I was at directions. I braved my navigational incompetence and helped us navigate, convinced I made the right choice. , we drove all around town, buying, drifting and laughing as we made life out of all our moments. when darkness fell i knew that for sure; my navigational incompetence was gonna pose a problem but nonetheless we made it all the way home.

You dropped me home and said goodnight.

The day after, you surprised me with a free spa treatment. I remember fidgeting in anticipation of the first haircut i was gonna get in years, let alone alongside you. And when you sat for the haircut, and you asked me to sit and get a haircut, a goofy smile dominated my face to which I turned back around and sat down to get the pampered treatment i so deserved and desired. I knew you were going to be unpredictable in the best way.

The first time you visited my neighborhood, I showed you my choice confectionery,since i knew very well that you still had your sweet tooth, you smiled and asked that we get something to eat but i declined cos we had a long evening ahead, didn't wanna get all nauseous from eating and driving. I was feeling playful and started pointing at all the places i loved to visit, then half-jokingly you asked me to tell you all about them, I smiled and i knew we were gonna have ourselves a time around all these places..You were someone of unapologetic self-awareness, an infectious hunger for knowledge who constantly questioned others’ apathy. I was a nomadic spirit constantly leaping before I looked, who threw most caution to the winds that carried my whims.

You brought me outside of myself.

We never really even drank much on our meetings—it was actually refreshing how liquid courage was unnecessary to get to know you. You sent me silly Whatsapps of your room and made me laugh and reflect; I listened to your musings on the weather and the way people drove around us, firing off questions in attempts to understand the way your mind worked.

We spent hours together exploring, drinking wine everywhere (driving around, getting clothes , on the couch watching Dstv), smoking weed, playing games or simply lazing in the sunshine on your patio balcony and sipping wine with cake, while spying on your neighbors down below with the overachiever garden. You knew your way around the stove but you didn't love to cook; you tried making some food for us to eat, which in turn turned to buying burgers from a fast-food shop and i laughed and ate to be nice.

It was a gorgeous, endless winter.

The distance between Africa and America became too far but not close enough.

Backwards to five days before. The last Saturday, where I stormed out because i felt angry not because of the way i felt but from the anxiety in my mind. I struggled to say bye partially because of the looming sadness I left knowing it may be the last.

I poured my fears out to you. In that moment, we were just two people equally together and alone. In that moment, I wanted to go back in time to the person you were and talk to you, tell you things would be okay. But I know you already know that they will be.

And then we realized, is this as far as we can go?

These are words of preservation, honoring a world in which you and I lived these days, sprinkled with silly jokes and weird animal nicknames. And I just wanted you to read them and know what they meant to me. I’m smiling because I will never view this city in the same way.
This is an I miss you, a thank you for being everything you are. For meeting me on that warm January day, for asking permission to lie with my name, for challenging my thoughts and giving me wings in a city that can be so harsh and frigid and wretched yet so maddeningly beautiful at the same time. For finding the courage to be vulnerable with me, even if it was only for a moment and the most you could find within yourself to give. And to let you know that I understand.

Like you said, maybe this isn’t goodbye, but the start of a fresh page for both of us.

Spilled Black Ink**

I wonder what I would tell you before we parted again. Would I just tell you goodbye again and watch you walk away as I seethed in pits of bitter unrequited feelings , or would I open the faucet and let those years of pent up feelings flow?

I'll miss you much.  Not a day goes by where you wouldn’t be on my mind. Through the years, you've brought out the absolute best in me.

I’ve never learned to say goodbye to you because you linger on in all of my moments. Even in the months we didn’t speak, as my eyes opened in the morning felt your presence and at night you crept into the crevices of my dreams. Could you believe that you still hold a special place in my heart after so long?

In the time when I finally decided it was time to forget you, I began to search for fragments of your being in my potential mates. I knew it was impossible to recreate something that felt so perfect, so I tried to redefine perfection. I tried once and failed horribly. I tried again and failed even more.

As I turn back to you and immerse myself in your warm glow, I wonder if I’m turning back to you just because I’m scared about those failures.  I have decided it isn’t fear that has pushed me back to you, but the need to look at us again with mature eyes.

You were the first person who pulled me off the shelf and read my story. You pushed me further and asked me questions, helping me discover myself. I can argue, as corny as it sounds, it wasn’t just a simple romantic connection, but a spiritual one that had occurred when you first walked through that door. You strived, in your simple way, to lift me from the trenches of depression and show me it meant to feel cared for. You strengthened me, cherished me, and shaped me into a better person. It was when I met you that I learned what it was to smile, laugh, and love and actually mean it. You became my companion.

You also shattered me. After you left, I singlehandedly picked up the shards of my wounded self. I was restored to my previous state, but now with the knowledge of how it felt to be cared for. That newly formed dimension was now barren, and I did not i don't know  how to cope. But I also learned to care for myself, and I'll be fine and be less dependent.

Now I look and wonder if I should just say goodbye and let you slip from my hands again? 

Dark Complexity...

  I don’t want to be this person. No one does. No one wants to admit that they are unable to move past something which happened so long ago that not even the most hopeless romantic would justify it. I know when I’m being pathetic, and letting something eat me from inside like a rotten tooth, and I don’t like it any more than I’m sure other people like to be around it. I know that people are holding their breath, waiting for me to make a scene. I know that everyone thinks I should have gotten over it. I hate being him, but its who I am.

  Part of me wants to ask you to let me go, even though I know how ridiculous that is. I'm almost always livid towards everything around me. If I really think about it, I understand that you are not intentionally stringing me along or periodically giving me false hope for something we might have in the future. You’re probably no longer a part of my life, and you don’t even acknowledge me. As much as it pains me to admit, you likely don’t think about me. Your days probably turn into months without ever fondly looking back on the time we spent all day talking with our fingers laced. Those memories don’t exist for you — or, at least, not in a way you have to acknowledge. You can store them away for a rainy day when you want to think about something sweet and forgotten. I have to live with these memories, constantly and reminding me that they are everywhere I go.

  I know that it’s not your fault. But I want to let go. I want to walk away from what we had and make every day a conscious step towards something more positive, something where I don’t factor someone into my life who no longer cares about me. I want to be brave in a way I always used to be, but haven’t been for some time. I want to return to the me who laughs at everything the loudest and is always up to try something new. I miss me, and at times have almost forgotten who I am. Part of me believes that the moment I truly let you go will be the moment I get me back — that you are, in a way, crowding my life and preventing me from living fully. But I know that it’s not a step you can take for me.

  I love you more now than I ever did, I think. And I know that part of this must be because I cannot have you (at least I think so), and things are always heightened with desire and longing. But I don’t know how to pretend that I don’t still burn for you the way I did when I was allowed to express it, if not more intensely.

  Please know that If I stop reaching out. If i stop making a fool of myself. If i stop being this person that I never wanted to be. I am working every day on making my life something beautiful and fresh and interesting, something that has nothing to do with you. I hold nothing against you — even if I wish I could, even if that would make everything so much easier — but I know I can’t be around you. I’m working up the courage to phase you out of my life (and my mind) completely, so that one day, I’d just run into you at a supermarket and have a nice little chat about what we’ve been up to, then go about my day as if nothing happened. But right now, I know that I couldn’t. I know that seeing you unexpectedly would destroy me. One day, I will get there, though. I’ll be me again, and I’ll have forgotten this brief interlude of sorrow. I hope you meet me when I’m that person, so you can forget who I am today.

History **

  There’s a strange feeling that sometimes overcomes us when we’re reaching out to someone, this feeling of acute embarrassment. “Are we bothering them?” we ask ourselves, and almost wanting to apologize for even sending a message in the first place. It’s as though our very presence in their lives is a nuisance, and our efforts to connect as friends or lovers is one that only complicates things for them. We want to say, “I’m sorry that I want to talk to you, it’s weird and I should probably stop.

   The thing is, you can feel when you’re bothering someone. It’s not difficult to tell when you are the one who is always reaching out, always initiating contact, always starting the conversation. You realize in a way that is at once terribly humiliating and almost masochistically sweet that you are the one chasing after them. When they grant you with their reciprocity, with their attention — nothing feels better. But most times you are left sending a message that you immediately regret, because you know that it only puts one more tally-mark in the “you need them, and not they need you” column.

  There are few things more painful than feeling like you’re constantly going out of your way for someone who is, at best, mildly amused by your affection. It’s hard to explain the feeling of disappointment exactly, but it’s mostly directed towards yourself. You can tell when you send them a good-morning text message, or call them, or take the time to do something for them that you know they’ll barely appreciate — this isn’t going to be reciprocated. This isn’t going to be really appreciated. Blimey, it may not even be noticed. But you can’t stop yourself. It’s just a sad, universal truth that there are people we love a lot who don’t really love us back. Whether platonic or romantic (or even, sadly enough, familial) there are always going to be these uneven relationships in which one person is constantly left feeling as though their emotions and their desires are mild irritants that trigger abrupt reactions.

   There are going to be friends we go out of our way for who never quite acknowledge us in return, who will never be there to listen to our problems, who wont cancel outing with others just to see you, and those who will never drive out in the middle of the night to pick us up when we’re in trouble — no matter how much we do these things for them. There certainly are going to be lovers with whom we long to construct an entire relationship, but with whom we will always feel stuck at the frustrating “beginner phase” where no exchanges go beyond the superficial. It just happens.

   The most difficult thing, it seems, is being able to admit when your love is going nowhere. Speaking personally, I have watched as more than one friendship proved themselves to be entirely one-sided, when my attempts to connect with the person (even on social media apps like sending BBM), were proving increasingly pathetic. I was just way more into them than they were into me, and there is always a certain amount of pain in admitting that. You don’t want to confront this person and tell them, “Well hello, look at all of these nice things I do and efforts I make for you, and you don’t do any of these things in return,” because it is a sad thing to do.

   It’s sad because the heart is hard to translate, It has a language of its own, which you can't always understand or interpret accurately. The truth is as much as you feel entitled to ah lot, actually they don’t owe you their friendship or their love. They don’t owe you the same kind of relationship you desire from them. You can’t insist, through repeated action, that someone is now indebted to you because you have proven that you are worth something indelible. We make the choice to keep giving our attention and love to someone who has clearly demonstrated that they don’t want it, and it is always their choice to make if they one day decide they want to start reciprocating.

   But to break the cycle and force yourself to stop initiating contact, to stop making effort, and to stop caring about their response — that is much harder. That means admitting that you have lost a battle you didn’t even want to acknowledge you were fighting. But when we’re trying to get someone to love us back, it’s always a battle. And it’s one we’re almost always guaranteed to lose.

Strength & Goodbyes**

I am unsure of how to begin this letter. Most of our conversations are never words, rather actions: a smile between note-taking; looking at each other over cups, your coffee clutched in jittery hands and my earl grey whispering steam; a tug at the corner of your shirt to pull you back from the oncoming traffic while walking. The few words we do exchange are formal. Hello. How’s Your Day Been Going. What Time Is It. To the world we are strangers accidentally drawn to each other by an inexplicable gravitational pull that keeps us joined at the hip, yet completely autonomous.

Perhaps I should replace “are” with “were” because our silent exchanges only ever occurred in the past tense. Now you are far away, too far to touch, to feel. I too, am far; too far to read the Braille of your face, or to analyze the clenching and unclenching of your tired fingers to know what you are thinking.  I compromise with pictures constructed from pixels; each click of the mouse to move to the next is indistinguishable from the ticking of the clock behind me. Each click is a second becomes a minute becomes a couple of minutes becomes an hour of playing mind games with the photo gallery of a social network. One clue here, another clue there. Go on, piece together the happenings of our days like a fucking jigsaw.  Press your face close enough to the screen and everything blurs together. Pull back and it’s still blurry and why am i crying, stop crying. Stop.

Tell me, what does it take for you to recognize all that is not right for you? What can I do, to the fullest of my pathetic human ability, to save you? Save you from the people you think you need to fall asleep, the ones who you think cleared your lungs of the tar of your ill-wishes and silent curses? I sit in bed, still as death, save for my mouth forming the words Those Who Are Good To You Are Not Always Good For You.
Oh, there you are again, on the other end of this invisible wire, the lines that run from the galaxies down to our city, connecting us as friends and used up minutes. And here I am, chanting my HU's to your deaf ears, the listening vessels that are ringing with a voice you think is better than a hymn. Because Hymns Never Lead Me To Salvation, I know you want to tell me. Neither Did This, I want to say back. But you are cracked and chipped and you think this false hymn is your seal, the last stop on the road to fixing yourself. It is not the last stop. It can’t be. Love can only go so far.

Alas, Best Friend, I came here with the unfamiliarity of words. This bulky, unwelcome present is yours to keep. May this present never collect dust. May you keep polishing this present, that is, my prayers and advice till they’ve been worn down to create a groove where your heart fits perfectly. They say ' One smile starts a friendship, One word, end a fight , One look, save a relationship and finally one person, change our lives. i know you changed me likewise i did you too , but in the end it objectively comes to this Bye.