Letters to My Lover
Xosa,
Your heart is a spring of love and light.
Luckily, you’re mine.
When I think about love, I think about you and the many new ways you show that you love me more with each passing day.
I have wanted to write this a long time ago, but each time I attempted, I never got past the first line and the line after.
I have written a million lines since we met, and they’ve been able to mark out some important times, like when you planted a garden of roses on the walkway to my heart, how I like it when you call me by my name, and how I won’t betray myself by saying more than this at the moment, but if there’s anything I learned from this, it’s that life isn’t a smooth but a twisted path. For if life were a smooth path and love a bed of thornless roses, we would meet at a time when life was fairer, not when I feel I’m slowly fading away.
But that’s just a side note.
You held on when I wasn’t quite sure, and you didn’t walk away when I was uncertain.
I’m starting to suspect there’s something you’re not telling me, like what makes you so tough. Did you hear anything from him?
I’m about to end this kebab, and don’t you think this is a love letter? If it were, it would assume the nature of love—it would have no end.
How else to end this?
Your heart is a spring of love and light, and maybe we’re well on our way to forever.
Tell Johnny that I miss him and that I want him back at all costs.
Tell him I miss our cozy evenings under the mahogany tree, because it was there that he taught me how to run my race in my lane so I don’t fall looking at someone else’s.
Tell Johnny I miss his love and the way he made our lips lock on our first kiss.
I thought I was going to die because I had made a mistake, but it was my Johnny who reminded me that God is love.
And that, after all, meant that whatever I had hitting the walls of my belly whenever I saw him was God.
Tell Johnny I miss his smile.
But I won’t miss it any more, for he had to lie.
that his heart was mine to keep.
And that was his missing rib.
Xosa,
It’s a damp blanket on all my dreams that you let sweet memories of you and me drown in the tears of helplessness you shed for Amante every night.
My vision for us has become as blurry as vision through glass dented by the snowballs Elvis and Whitney threw on Christmas eve.
If love were a fairy tale, I would be Jack, not Robinson, but a jack of all trades,
I’d be our Jumeo, and I’d pray that my love would be enough for both of us.
My sacrifice for us was more than its value could express.
But I’m only asking for half the price.
Two cents of the million it’s worth, Xosa,
Love me through Christmas and into the new year.
From Wisconsin, Jack.
Gray,
Our love reminds me of my grandfather’s box television that lays on the wooden cupboard in his 1960s parlor.
I remember the first day you met me. Standing in front of the limelight, I could only remember you by your silhouette.
That day at the disco party, it was in the shadow of your hand. strong and firm as I remembered.
Gray,
Back in primary school, I never made it out of any art class unfloggoged because I never had my color pencils with me, so every space in my art template that wasn’t black from the strokes of my pencil was as white as the paper.
Maybe this is it for me. This must be my present being painted with the colors of my past.
Written By EdySly
Discussion about this post