But the characters never seemed right.
They were shallow inspiration from rendezvous
that started with maybe and ended in hell no
Speed dates bringing faces in pretty packages
that failed to deliver, cyber visits that concluded
With adjectives unbefitting of the masterpiece I imagined
I mean, whose eternity begins with ‘nice’ or ‘okay’?
I wasn’t expecting a miracle with you
But I caught my joy betraying itself one time too many
in loud eruptions of laughter that accompanied thoughts of you
... the exaggerated way you recount events,
when I started carefully pitching the notes of your voice at the right key in my head
giving my name the cloak of your existence
like Curtis Edwards, Curtis Stephanie Edwards
getting first date giddy at the thought of you
I knew you had become the only character I wanted to see in my story
I didn't understand forever until I met you
Now you are woven into the fabric of every thought
When my emotions are fortified castles
You hear through my silence and coax my spirit out of anxieties hallways.
You are a mirror and a spin cycle
Leaving me be and challenging rebirth of a better me
Your love to me is security and danger, safety and risk
You are a leap of faith I want to continue making
Curtis, I recall the beginning.
When your date tells you
‘I don’t tend to like people straight away’
Then cuts the evening short by refusing desert
without so much as a glance in your direction
you prepare to tuck the evening into your useless but interesting encounter cabinet.
You suggested drinks. I’m not sure why I said yes
But I soon noticed your smile melting away
my reluctance as it now does in angry moments
your eloquence aroused my curiosity
And slowly, as tomorrows found us unraveling together
your laughter rolled drum beats into blue skies
and had me beseeching God for longer days
to bask in the glow of your company.
If I am your story, you are the best chapter in a book that was being written about me
Long before its existence entered my consciousness.
Voices in college corridors I heard but couldn't decipher
Mothers on different floors of the same buildings
never meeting but together dreaming our futures into being
You are answers to questions I had almost stopped asking
We are soca and heavy metal fusion
that somehow yields rhythm
Your energy is my rainbow.
Your patience my motivation,
your understanding, my validation.
I catch myself admiring you sometimes
Imagining us older in a little town, somewhere warm
holding hands, looking out to sea,
saying everything and nothing with no words
Overwhelmed by the love that has been our union
I’m bookmarking this moment
Asking you to save it clearly
So when celebrations are wiped out by the night
And reality opens its doors
We can both enter in the joy and strength of this moment
Where we bound hands and lives
In chords of love and invited God to be our glove.
©2015ToluAgbelusi
