Enyi’m
he is altogether lovely. this is my beloved, this is my friend.
his mouth is sweetness itself; he is altogether lovely. this is my beloved, this is my friend, daughters of jerusalem. a friend loves at all times. for good friends are like the anointing oil that yields the fragrant incense of God’s presence.
i don’t want to lose myself, so i won’t make it easy for you trust me because Jesus taught his disciples to put another person’s wellbeing above their own, even at great personal cost.
i can love you. i can love you the way i love the breeze, the sky, the earth, the trees, but never as full as you’d want me to. never as full as God’s love for us. in my head its you or God or the weight of balance.
but i believe when i give my time, comfort, and strength for the good of those i love. then i’m still giving something. i’m still giving a part of myself. but we can never match to who God is, he’s the only person divine enough.
i’m human, which shouldn’t always be an excuse but i’m too much of a messy most beautiful image of him. i will get tired. i will disappoint you. i will misunderstand you.
maybe i’m perfect in his eyes, maybe i hope i am just who i am in yours.
that being said, everything i’ve said isn’t to scare you. its for you to decide if i’m worth the ritual of trust. i think friendship is a ritual. it is in the ordinary continuation of choosing someone.
it is knowing that after the excitement, after the poetry, after the first trembling confession of affection, i will still want to hear your voice describing unimportant things. i will still reach for you half-asleep. i will still memorize the small shifts in your silence.
i think that is the kind of love I want with you.
not the loud kind people envy from a distance, but the quiet kind that survives time. the kind that sits beside you while life happens. the kind that learns your sadness by shape. the kind that knows which version of your smile is genuine.
and every ordinary day that somehow becomes extraordinary because it was lived beside you.
to be lost and to be found, that is the lifespan of love. and in it’s brevity, it’s tragedy, this has been made eternal. so after the butterflies settle down, what’s left is your mind, body or soul.
while i breathe, i hope.
i want to laugh with you. i want to listen to your thoughts, dreams, fears and random stories.
i don’t know how to be loud but I still want to support you the way a close friend would. Aka nri kwo aka ekpe, aka ekpe akwo aka nri (The right hand washes the left hand, and the left hand washes the right hand).
i want to feel safe enough to talk to when life gets difficult. i want to respect and be respected as a person, not just as a romantic partner. i want to disagree with you without it turning to conflict or avoidance.
i want truth.
Enyi ka nwanne (a good friend is better than or equal to a sibling).
for now, allow me the pleasures of learning to be a good friend to the ones keep giving me a part of themselves.
allow me to keep giving myself to the one whose love for me is deeper than the endless ocean.
he is my friend.
if i say, “i want my lover to be my friend,” solomon will understand me.
*Reverie**
i was laying on my back, head turned towards him, one arm folded under my cheek.
light spilled through the curtains and caught in his hair.
he looked unfairly peaceful.
beautiful.
magnificent.
his fingers moved absently over the strings like they belonged there more than anywhere else.
every soft strum drifted into every corner of the room, i could feel it in my ribs, in the hollow just below my throat.
i let my fingers comb through my braids, pretending I wasn’t completely undone.
my heart felt too big for my chest, flipping and floating all at once.
his silhouette blurred around the edges, light wrapped around him like a halo made of summer.
i lay there feeling like the luckiest girl in the world.
he was not the most handsome man in the village.
he was not the wealthiest.
he could not recite poetry.
he forgot dates.
he snored.
but every morning, he sang for me and played his guitar.
every harvest season, he saved the best fruits for me.
every difficult year, he carried his share of the burden without complaint.
and every night, before sleep found us, he asked about my day as though the answer mattered.
and if I am asked what love looked like in my youth, i will not speak of butterflies or destiny.
i will speak of a man who walked me home.
Again and again.
long after he no longer had to.
he was my friend…
enyi’m…
~JART
Enyi’m means “my friend” in Igbo the same way it is interpreted as Oremi in Yoruba.