Letters I never sent III

We’ll practice forever.

In another lifetime, we’ll practice forever.

I’ve always wanted the real stuff or what almost felt like it and with you I assumed it was. No doubts, no maybes or a lifetime of uncertainties like having to pick between a rose and a tulip.

Sometimes your eyes were kind. Some days you were cold, distant, unloving and almost empty. Always half closed but I always liked to think I was the only one those eyes saw. Purely. Completely. Eternally. Only, your gaze was never soft. I could see it in the way you always looked at me like an afterthought, like a love letter you regretted writing and I was close enough to be there when you needed me the most.

I never called you by your name, I called you names my heart couldn’t call another. Maybe because I craved you too much knowing you was never mine, but you still liked that I stayed. I think you loved that I loved you, but you didn’t love me as much.

You loved me only when I loved you, your love came in seasons and they reeked of conditions. I lost myself in the process, gave out every part of myself and left nothing for me. You said I was doing too much, but all I ever wanted was to build a life with you, share dreams with you, go to the ends of the earth for you, burn the world for you if possible. I just simply loved you the best way I knew how to.

But in another lifetime…

We’ll meet at the right time, somewhere the sun shines shyly behind pink lonely clouds and paints the sky orange. Maybe at the mountain top or the seashore in Lagos. In a shoulder season on a Tuesday in June. Our paths will cross like it was predestined by God, anchored by the universe and orchestrated by the angels.

I know I sound crazy but I then I’ll know you were made for me and i was created just for you. Our eyes will meet in different lifetimes connecting our beating hearts as one. You’ll be pleasant and wholesome and I’ll be the shy lady with dry jokes that makes you chuckle, and make your eyes lit up.

I’ll tell you I loved your curiously thoughtful and attentive brown eyes and you’ll blush knowingly. And after a while of not taking those eyes off me, you’ll tell me my smile warms your heart.

We will be kind to each other, enjoying the open air, walking in the same pace and talking about anything that sits at the tip of your tongue and mine. Your hands clasped behind your back and mine fumbling with the helm of my cotton skirt. We will be just strangers who are nice to each other carefully feeding the flames of what is and not what could become.

I’ll pretended not to like you, but I feel wildly unsure and unwaveringly certain of you and my name will be stapled on your rising chest and sound like a song written for me whenever you say it. Your sweet words hammering in my head, you remain you and I remain me, soft and simple, eager and willing.

I’ll belong to myself and you’ll belong to yourself. And give you all of me but never lose me and I’ll be worth every headache I give. We will chase each other under a pear tree and sometimes dance to the soft glow of string lights, the gentle hum of music and your laughter will echo, filling up the boring parts of me.

I’ll kiss your flaws and you will whisper how precious I am to you, and your eyes will never lie. When the weather is perfect for me, I’ll hold you, kiss your forehead, and keep you wrapped in my arms. We’ll laugh, cuddle, and let the evening melt away as we enjoy every second together. We’ll have side jokes and arguments that don’t end in walking away.

We’ll know when to hold tenderness in one hand and truth in the other. We’ll make our memories in places we held hands and called home, kept in letters, in soft kisses, in Polaroids and wooden frames. No labels hanging over our heads with so much weight of weary expectations, l’ll be yours and you’ll be mine. In every lifetime I chose you and you chose me, over and over without holding breath and I’ll tell you that I love you, and you’ll tell me you adore me.

We’ll do it all over again, through space and time and I’ll love you in every universe…

Yours truly,

Muah💋

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