Talk to Chika Onyenezi on the Fictionville blog
I saw you on that dry hamattan day. A day the sun hid itself like a tortoise, yet we saw its rays peeping out of the white cloud in happiness. You walked past me like a deity in an ancient town. Your beauty shun like an indigo hue in my heart. You smelled of earth and life, like a fresh lily in a heavenly park. Your tin red lips curved in the right place, setting your nose to its pointed position. Do I talk of your sharp eyes that looked like a crescent in the dark? You tucked a rose in bosom on your front pocket. Maybe to tell us of your nature full of roses, but it was written all over you. From your slim legs to your hips that curved at the right place. From your curve to your hair I mistook for that of a mermaid. You were irresistible, charming, and tender above all. The words of William Shakespeare came to my mind: shall I compare thee to a mid summer day? But in the second thought I said to myself again: shall I compare thee to a bright hamattan day? I made up my mind to take a snub from you, which was better than silence and dreary dreams. My heart thumped like a barren woman waiting for a pregnancy test as I approached you, I stood beside you like a cherry tree, and you saw my weakness above all, as I tried to stammer my way across your heart. You choose me as though picking cotton. I never wanted to seen as mere cotton; I wanted you to see me as the loveliest of all fruit ever planted. You spoke as sharp as a canon ready to blast, I loved it though. As I bid you Farewell, I cursed my self for not having the powers to summon all angles to guide you.
It was never a first sight affair for you, but for me it was. Heaven would bear me witness, I couldn’t rest that night. I spent hours painting your beautiful face on a canvas. I felt like the famous painter Giotto while painting your face. The same night I pasted the angelic painting on my wall, and there it remained till this day. When I slumbered to dream island, I dreamt of the two of us in the Garden of Eden, we were restored to experience paradise on earth for that night.
I couldn’t wait to behold you again; I couldn’t wait to hear your soft voice. I felt days washed away like erosion, nothing meant anything to me except to see you again. Before me you stood again wearing that magical smile that could break Abacha’s heart into soft piece of foam. We stood like two winds that gently passed each other. I held your hand like a purple cloud holding a blue sky. You spoke with softness and tenderness that was only talked about in heaven. We built a paradise around us.
Night and day we stood before the sun and moon waiting for heaven to see us. Singing love songs like a pair of nightingale. You said you were a maiden, I told you were a puritan. With innocence of children, we tendered our approaches. You asked me were I wanted to be in the ten years, dreamily I told I wanted to stand before Eiffel tower painting it. You saw me as a man with high dream and prospects. Pardon me if I say you saw a goldmine in me. You strengthened my brush like no other person. You reminded me of Kenny Rogers who sang:
…She believes in
I never know just what she see in me…
I held these words in my heart like a bone in a joint. I looked up to you as my strength; I knew you did so to me. From strength to strength we grew. Day after day I felt your love like a wine so strong in my vein. It lightened my heart so bright that I forgot hard times of the old. You seemed real to me more than a hurricane. Not like Dickens character Thomas Gradgrind in Hard Times whom passed judgment on thing from factual point of view instead of truth: you were truth, as real as the morning sun that rose from an orange thread on the sky.
If I talk of kindness so dear, then the pages cannot contain. Our friends were making fun of us cause non have ever felt the way we did. We held hands were they would see us and laugh. We felt ties between us like a wedding in spiritual world where they tie hands together. You are my moon, my light, my fragrant garden, a pet in my world, a whisper in a shore, a wine for my soul.
Let me remind you once more of our most dear moments. The day we spent at the museum, looking at the images of African warriors, is a song always in my lips. Later I painted you beside the Ibo warrior with spear in his hands. It was a thing I wished to be, a warrior looking after my dearest. Later we sat beside the beach, savouring the endless gift of nature that came as a wind. As gentle as it brushes your hair apart you lifted your eyes to meet mine with the fire of love, then before the maidens and deities of the sea you said ‘I love you’. I believed your words like nothing else I wanted to sing ode to my love, but I felt short of words to match the leaping meters. Then you said to me ‘you are a great poet’. I never believed that, I never intended being a poet. I only wanted to have my oil and paint on the canvas. I wanted to paint you for the world to see. I wanted the world to behold the beauty of Africa in you. So let me match you the best of the world beauties. Let me tell you that if I am to choose from the best of the world beauty, I will always choose you.
Then came the hour I dreaded most. The hour I never wanted to see. I told you I was leaving; you cried and asked me to stay with for you ever. If I were to be independent then I would have gladly packed in with you forever. But I couldn’t stay back. You cried to my heart, I want to tell that if I were to be a magician I would have moulded your tears into a priceless jewel and cuffed them in my skin forever. But I had no power then and I don’t have now. Our love didn’t last dear, forlorn I left the tiny island. As I watched that tiny land diminishes into the horizon: like a shy girl, then I knew that I have lost you.
I promised you many things dear. I promised to call you, I promised to come back. But each day as I picked the phone to call you, I felt like a geek in love, so I never called you. I never saw you again.
But I want to tell you my dear Rose: let the world tear apart, let the politician kill themselves, lets the worst happen. Like bob Marley who said that he wasn’t afraid of the atomic energy cause non of them can stop the time, but I say to you that I am not afraid of the worst cause non of them can kill my love for you. I want to tell you that I am not a poet; I am just a painter residing in Paris like we dreamed. But I still lack on thing which is your love. I have been around the world seen famous paintings, but none has the effect your portrait. Darling you are God’s masterpiece. I will always wear your love like a flame in my heart forever.
Forgive for my weak hands that couldn’t lift the telephone, for my weak tongue that couldn’t speak at cherished moments, for my folly and my awkward nature. Forgive me for leaving you; forgive me for not taking your portrait to the world best art exhibition. Forgive me for never returning and I shall not return again. Goodbye my dear angel, to the sky I toast, I pray you find a love better than ours.