The Last Letter

On a very drunken night, I picked up my pen to write my lastest findings to my lover who lived four towns from mine, his face always reminded me of someone connected to the many lives I lived before this present one.

As I sat in front of my desk, legs stretched out underneath, I placed my pen on the paper to begin writing my final note to love, praying that love might understand that I do not need another being to define my existence because I’d love in every other way; with the things I like, with the activities I do, in every piece of clothing I wear, every page I taint with my thoughts, who I’d be would be filled of love and I have found myself complete by realizing this of me with all of the things that circles me.

  At the mercy of my hands, I poured more than just wine, I emptied my bottle and freed myself from love’s questioning chambers that night. 

 

THE LAST LETTER

 

Hello Matthew,

I hope to the many stars present in the galaxy that your eyes haven’t forgotten to look at them, and I hope you’re doing very well?

I’ve always pondered and wondered how this letter will finally be written or if I’d gain the courage to tell you all I thought within and how I no longer see loving someone as what will make me complete. I hope silently that you’ll understand this thought as with its decision. Matthew, I cannot give you what you need because I do not fully trust giving anyone myself will be the best decision to make, and I’ll hate to keep you waiting, praying that I may be entirely binded by you when I do not wish to be binded to anyone but myself. I hope this letter can explain my thought in a way that speaks clarity.

Sweet sweet Matthew, love once awoken a fire in me during my adolescence, I can remember the thrill that resonated with all of me, the outcome from the many romance novels that kept my body and its mind awake and wanting with desire and lush, they were fantastic days of my life where I could bury my attention to its grave and life will spring from it.

Everything I’d imagined about love felt like the best oxygen to breathe and then, life from that very moment brought love to me and it was so beautiful or at least I had thought it to be. You see Matthew, love developed a different background and attraction to its usual surfaced pattern and I stilled trying my hopeful best to not ask more of it in fear that it might go away, it might leave and I might never see it again. Days came and went, it turned to weeks and then months where I kept realizing such unkind love wasn’t what I needed and whatever was going on in this moment wasn’t what I wanted to commit to, these are the things that sunk me into greater thoughts and deliberations in my head and in every conclusion, I realized the love I wanted was comforting, kind, patient, open, truthful, equal in our differences, sweet, calm, trustworthy and it goes on. Dear Matthew, I fear the reality of facing the truth of surrendering totally to love and if I give someone that access? I fear for my sanity and my safety, I fear for my death and I fear it may be by my own hands and so I avoid loving and being loved by openly embracing running from it.

Matthew, This is the conclusion from all the confusion, the roaming and the screaming in which I’ve done in my head while I considered the changes from my childhood (past), the understanding of this new presentation of myself in love (present) and the age where ‘now’ feels my tomorrow doesn’t want me to settle (future). Honestly all I carry is the little spark that maybe this current finding is wrong as all I carry is a light understanding of this revelation.

I want to listen to myself, I want to listen to my being as it does not wish to love or to marry, I do not want to be defined complete by having a significant other, I’m complete in other things that satisfy me, I do not feel empty neither do I want a lover as I’m not lonely. Truly, I am satisfied being in love with myself and my interest.

I’m sorry Matthew and I wish that in some other time, in a life where I finally crave to be with another, it’s you I say I do to and it’s you that becomes my husband till death takes our heart. I’ll always love you and I’m happy to have spent wonderful and fine times with you under the sun and the stars, in the rain and when the heat scorched the most, in the showers and on the sofas, in the many winds that pushed our sails to unknown islands, our survival in society and our faithful prayers before we closed our eyes to sleep. You’ve showed me so much love especially at this time when I never wanted an us. I hope you can forgive me and you can understand that I don’t want to feel like I’m betraying you anytime I’m with you enjoying our time together as lovers should.

Goodbye and take good care of yourself.

Yours,

May.

That night I sent out all my pending letters with it to the post office because I feared I’ll never let myself speak about it by the morning and it’d only make things worse when I can no longer still myself from knowing this truth about me. I do acknowledge that love is indeed for the brave and in some other lifetime I’d want to experience such bravery as much as I wanted to as a child, but I’m not weak to admit that it’s not the thing that fills me, it’s everything I pour my heart into that does and so, I’d rather live enjoying this liberty.

-Nnenna