20th September 2019
If you don't love me, please pretend.
Ron Pope.
Allow me to recount one of my earliest memories of my encounters with women.
Roughly around fifteen years ago, in my usual monkey business as a little boy.
This was back when all I cared about was eating more chapatis than I did the last time, mix that with the twice a week wrestling TV episodes and classroom glances from my favourite female classmates and my world would be complete.
Never in my life have I been more enthusiastic about Mondays, this would be the day I would see my crush after missing her for two days in a row.
Good lord, Mondays had me more excited than a jihadist dangling by his neck from a manilla rope noose, a breath away from meeting the divinely coveted seventy two virgins.
I was in class four then, I swear our class had seventy two virgins.
Good Lord, testosterone had us near explosion levels, I was a literal walking bomb, a terrorist.
This was back when pupils would change classrooms to learn different lessons as per the timetable, I assume the headteachers unquestionable logic was that there would be more commotion and waste of time if the teachers switched classes instead of the very many pupils.
Our classes were categorised by two colours, from standard one to eight, there were two classes for each standard, so a pupil in any of the standards was either in class white or in class green.
I was white, and so was my crush and so was my crushes' crush, my other crush was green but her crush was in white.
My favourite moment was the break time where we could exchange a few words or letters.
I do not recall the exact wordings I put to paper back then, I even doubt my handwriting was readable.
My handwriting is like a relic from a past life, it's one of the few surviving remnants of my childhood demeanor, over the years I've changed and matured, I've improved different areas of my life yet my handwriting has passed the test of time by defiantly remaining as terrible as it was when I was a toddler.
It's untidyness is a reminder of who I was and absurdly who I still am in some way.
In my untidy nature yet curiously interested in this girl, I penned a letter whose words I can't recall.
This was before I lost my virginity.
This was before I discovered poetry.
So fast forward to this minute where am in bed nostalgically writing this poem to that lady in tribute to a moment long gone yet not forgotten.
A love,
As pure as the scent of a drop of nectar dangling at the tip of a hummingbirds long beak,
Burns straight into my nostrils and breathes into my every cell.
A love,
As frail as a sprinkle of morning dew hanging on the spuns of a garden spiders cob web,
Engulfs me in its maze and traps me in its helpless ways.
A love,
As sharp as the ends of a claw clenching a rabbit in a hawks talons.
Pierces through my heart and tightens it's wrenching grasp.
A love,
That probably only exists in Shakespearian fiction.
Vic
Man, u have to forgive me for that poems dramatic end, but so was my fling with this particular girl.
It took us both our teen years to realise what we called love was actually puberty.
And now in adulthood, I've been in relationships thinking it's love only for closure to reveal to me that actually all my dates and I dated only for each persons own convenience.
Right now I would believe in love but am practical, id rather put my faith in a booty call than in a unicorn.
The closest moment I had to believing in love as an adult was when after a month of dating, my then girlfriend and I lost our phones and had no way of communicating.
On the fateful day when we both lost our phones, we devised a genius plan on how to sustain the relationship.
We planned our next date by picking a venue and time, and we would meet at that specific place at that specific time so that we can plan the next specific place and time to meet, if one of us failed to show up once that would mean we wouldn't be able to find each other ever again.
Well, we sustained the relationship that way for months before we both bought new phones.
Anyway, some years later we cheated on each other and we currently
have no idea about each others whereabouts.
In my lifetime,
I've received more "I love yous" than I've given "I love you toos" and I've given more "I love yous" than I've received "I love you toos"
Please, read that again.
In short, many of those I love do not love me and many of those who love me,well , they get screwed, both literally and figuratively.
Am not trying to count exes but am out of fingers and toes.
In the pursuit of the soulmate...look at:
All these women we pursue, all these women who pursue us.
All the great moments, all the break ups
All the orgasms, all the rejections.
All the births, all the miscarriages and abortions.
All the trust, all the transmitted deseases.
All the couples, all the co-parents.
All the families, all the fatherless kids.
All the marriages, all the divorces.
Look at; all the pleasure and all the pain....in all this pursuit, what are we truly looking for, what is this so called love.
What does this "I love you" truly mean?
The earliest reference of the word "love" is in the Bible.
Genesis 22:2 – “Then He said, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.
God asks Abraham to sacrifice his Isaac, a child he and his wife waited for twenty five years.
God could have asked Abraham for anything else but God chose Isaac, God chose what Abraham loved most, what Abraham suffered and sacrificed most for.
In God's love for man, God sacrificed His only Son.
In God's love for man, Jesus sacrificed his own life.
A hen with chicks, will fight even an elephant to the death.
Life is the ultimate price for love.
Our modern idea of love fails in many aspects, we love people for what we can get from them.
You love her because she is okay with you being broke.
You love him because he is good in bed.
You love her because she is beautiful and that reflects you as "the man"
You love them because they love you.
You love them because: you can fulfill your lust through them, you can get money from them, you can get a name from them...
You love them because it's convenient for you.
Is that love then, or a conditional type?
Truly though, to love is to give, give, give then give some more.
Anything else is misguided.
Love can only be measured through sacrifice.
Here's the prime example, God says he loves man then sacrifices His own life to save man.
So when you say you love something, what have you truly sacrificed for it?
Truly, love is a sacrifice meant to nourish the soul of the receiver just as much as it nourishes the giver.
Victor Mafusa