Sometimes you meet a woman and you are struck with a bout of vertigo. Her looks engulf you with a dizziness that floors you. The kind of beauty that disrupts your balance, distorts your equilibrium and leaves you staggering in her wake. If you are in doubt, ask Paris, Prince of Troy. Upon setting his eyes on Helen of Troy – regarded by the Greek gods as the most beautiful woman in the world – he threw caution and a peace deal his father had brokered with one King Agamemnon to the wind.
Paris couldn’t help his giddy loins and rolled in the hay with Helen who happened to be Menelaus’ wife. Menelaus, who by the way happened to be King Agamemnon’s brother. There’s a lot more to that story but the bottom line is that the city of Troy went to the mattresses. Spawning what is famously known today as the Trojan War.
All for a steamy tryst courtesy of Helen’s seemingly boneless waist and Paris’ seemingly boneless boner.
Helen has since been sainted as, “The face that launched a thousand warships.”
In a far less dramatic and historic fashion, I met a woman whose visage captured me with the might of a thousand warships. When you come across this type, it’s in your best interest to tread gingerly. And so when I stumbled on this lady who blew me away like a Bedouin’s arafat in a windy desert. I recognized what I felt towards her for what it was. Pheromone induced confusion. Oftentimes this feeling wanes but on the seldom occasion it persists then boy you are it’s a catch 22. Seeing as you have no choice but one choice. To pursue.
If you are the type of guy who imbibes his liquor dry then I’ve got news for you. There’s only one way to deal with intoxicating beauty, you’ve got to chase it. And so, did I. I hit on this girl with the intensity Stephen was pelted with. I tripped over my shoelaces and fell for her. Thuddingly and in a heap like tomes falling off a bookshelf.
We courted, we dated, we parted….
Grief is love with no place to go, so I heard. Loving is so short and forgetting…. Well forgetting lasts a lifetime. It’s been a year since and why have I yet to move on?
It is a common habit for exes to ferry back belongings of former lovers. The desire to dissociate oneself from a broken past and to break free from the firm grip of nostalgia. Your love life with the concerned person has seen better days and those days are certainly not the present ones. So you’d rather let them have whatever they gave you when they were under the illusion you were the last frog they would kiss.
But even a broken clock is right twice a day. More than twice in a day you occasion my mind. We were never married but our separation makes me feel divorced. And these attempts to wash and wish away our past have been akin to rubbing the scars on my skin with a pencil eraser. The memories of a love gone awry are like a tattoo in the heart, everyone gets theirs eventually.
And so I’ve done the whole cycle. I no longer wear the timepiece you bought me for my birthday. How poetic we couldn’t stand the test of time. The paintings you churned out for me with marvel artistry no longer decorate my walls. The post it notes with tidbits of your dripping love and the cards you wrote. The long windy chats on Whatsapp. The photo gallery on my phone which became your colony. The book and journal you gifted me. The untold messages with which you spammed my Instagram DM. And the many arrows from your quiver of love that I may now fail to register. Were conclusively dispatched from the centre of my existence like driftwood from a ship floating at sea.
And how could I forget? Deleting your number which I dial in offhead on nights I can’t remember with friends I can’t forget just to fall short of calling you.
Out of sight out of mind. You’d think it actually helps. The sudden mechanical changes to your life post break up looking to jerk yourself back to ‘normalcy’. In the hope to egest this person out of your system and your environs. This phase is my biggest struggle because how do I, overnight, arrive at a resolute decision to completely purge myself of a woman I was once utterly enamoured with?
Grief is love with no place to go, so I heard. I do not know where to take your ringing giggles and laughter which raid my brain – day in day out. I wish I could pack them in a box put them on a boda and send them over to you.
Grief is love with no place to go. Tell me why the kisses you planted on me moons ago still feel fresh and misty on my skin? What am I supposed to do with the prints of your tender breasts that I can still grasp on my palms? Like I charessed your bosom yesterday?
Wasn’t it a heartbeat ago when we did sneaky things in your father’s parking lot? Chortling at our mischief because we never got caught? Tell me why I insist on having difficult conversations with you. How I religiously confide in you whenever I’m in a pickle and you always respond. I keep hearing your voice. Your voices. The stern and rational voice handling life’s curve balls. The corporate and official voice holding it down in professional circles. You have always been so smart, so intelligent, so driven. It’s no surprise you keep holding your own as you do. I ceaselessly wondered how you took a second glance at a dud like me. But then I guess love makes a fool of the best of us.
Your voices. The groans and silent moans, the passionate sonics that oiled our bed-creaking sessions. The broken voice, the vulnerable you, the inner child seeking respite from an unmemorable past. This was my favourite voice because you trusted me so much to let me into the crevices of your seemingly well put life.
Grief is love with no place to go. Perhaps I should charge you for sticking around rent free in my head. Maybe I should transport you back to yourself. Or stuff you in a bottle like a genie and cast you off. I’m at loss with what to do with these sensations. A whiff of your scent gives me goosebumps. The texture of the strands of your hair are second nature to my hands; they are installed in my muscle memory. How I miss running my fingers through them.
I’m at a loss for your loss. But you’ve made it clear that none of my agony is requited. Outright in your actions you’ve expressed that I’ve loved too long. Indicating it best for me to soldier on.
Your refusal to respond to my cues last time out at Oktobafest. The cold stare and shoulder. The one word ripostes shooing me away. The frost between us that wouldn’t thaw no matter how warm my words. The finality in your goodbye. The banality in your farewell words, ‘take care..’
Nothing has shattered me to shards as much in recent months. And as I persisted in my incorrigible advances in the following days you set the record straight once and for all.
In the kindest words you delivered the cruellest message. You had me know. You are seeing someone now. Someone ‘new’. Probably better. Girls perennially date up. You have a new bedfellow tracing the contours of your being. Chirping and whispering sweeter songs to you well within earshot.
Of course it doesn’t hurt me at all. Neither am I green with envy. At all. But even though our rodeo is long up in smoke, sparks still flicker in the ashes you left behind. At least for me it isn’t over. Yet. It’s been a year and a month since our break-up anniversary. It’s been a month since Valentines’ day. It’s a cosmic shame it all had to end this way.
My famed old flame.
