Ayo’s Heart
I have always known who you were, I might have been someone who kept to themselves, but I was still pretty much up to date with campus gossip. I didn’t keep up with it, but I would hear bits and pieces of it here and there. When we started dating, I had your exes come up to me, telling me what a horrible person you were. I believed them, maybe people had only experienced the terrible side of you.
However, I knew your softer edges, I knew the sides you only showed to me and Lesedi. I knew your easy laughter, the crazy stories you told, I knew that you actually had a big heart that you were terrified of getting broken. So even when people said you were mean and cruel, I stuck around for the gentle kindness I have seen in you.
When we met, you were nothing more than an annoyance to me. You were an entitled rich boy, and I thought that you were only pursuing me out of impulse. I thought you would give up after the third week, so I let you hang around me.
I constantly wonder how you won me over so easily. How you walked past my barriers and just strolled your way into my heart. You captivated me, in the tiniest of movements and the tiniest of breaths. I’ve watched myself fall incandescently in love with you.
I’ve watched you sleep, many times. Completely aware of how creepy it was, I watch you sleep so I can draw you. Art has always been my love language. I love that I have entire sketchbooks of you, drawings of you at your most vulnerable. I have drawn you bent over the stove making me pancakes. I’ve drawn you with that pencil in your ear, your brows drawn, focusing on your assignment. I’ve drawn you with my feet on your lap, your fingers playing with my toes while you watched How to get away with murder.
I draw you, my love, because it’s the only way I know how to say I love you without scaring you off. I know I’m a coward, why don’t I just say it? Why don’t I just tell you how much you mean to me and how happy you make me? Well, because I know you Ade. I know that no matter how good you are to me you would run if I were to push you too far. I know that if I were to ask you how you really felt it would spook you.
Therefore, my love, for you I am easy-going, I am understanding and I am compromising. I write these letters, through which I can express how I feel honestly. I draw you, sketch you all over, sometimes even absent-mindedly. It is the only way I know how to love you without hurting me.
I love you Ade, even when loving you feels like a breath held in anticipation. I love you even when it means I should constantly wonder if today is the day when you will finally yield yourself to me, it never is. So I wait until tomorrow. Nevertheless, I will always wait for you.
Love, Ayo
Comments