I trust you are well.
It has been such a long time since I have written to you and this is a tragedy.
I say so because I remember the days when our love was young. I recall how I used to write to you from the heart, numerous poems that you would read and smile at.
The words flowed like honey from your lips as you recited that free verse, or elegy, or haiku, depending on which direction the lyric angel had sent me on that day.
It’s been a while since I’ve even written you the simplest alphabet arrangement, a letter.
But to my defence, time was aplenty back then, when we were younger.
It seems, too, that time was slower then.
It was just us two, and the mornings were longer, long enough to take walks around the block and still relax over coffee.
I recall how we’d share stories in the kitchen as we made breakfast, while ASA belted out “Bamidele” over the minute and barely audible TV speakers.
We didn’t have a sound system then; the sound was supplemented by our very out-of-tune voices (well, mine mostly, you can actually sing very well).
And on the days we decided to go out, I’d wash my VW Beetle.
To be honest, the underlying intention wasn’t to keep it clean.
It was more of a plea, a humble request. The soap and water were an offering, begging that we drive to wherever we intended to go and back safely, without a breakdown.
It seldom worked.
We would be only thirty minutes into the journey, itself tense and not as happy as you would expect of a young couple on a fun day out.
Although we tried to chat, we were both anticipating the moment that red “overheat” light would flash on the dashboard, followed by that burning smell, a prelude to the cloud of vapor from the bonnet, the pulling over, and the dangerous refilling of the radiator using the five-litre water bottle in the boot.
I wrote to you even less when our baking theatrics led to a bun in the oven.
At that point, my mind wasn’t fluid enough, coagulated, thickened by the pressures of seeing you to the hospital on scheduled dates, with no money in my pockets.
And the cravings…
I’m just grateful that most of the time it was popcorn.
I could buy a raw packet for about ten Emalangeni then, and pop it in a pot with a dash of cooking oil.
Still, there was no writing creativity, not with the prospect of having a baby in the coming months and no steady income stream hanging over my head like a dark cloud.
I do remember writing a poem to him, though, one week before he landed.
It was mostly a promise note, pledging to try my best, even though, at that point, I still had not secured a stable means of income.
Then he came, in a flurry of emotions and turned our world upside down.
Life’s spotlight shifted entirely from us to him.
With every minute of every hour, my mind was occupied with ensuring he ate, dressed, had teething toys…
And you see, at that point, the angel who once brought me words found another hobby to while away time, accepting that my world was now clouded by the beep-beep of low electricity units.
And when I finally got a job, I left the two of you to man the borders of the country, far away.
I remember the month I got my first salary, I went to Nedbank and took a loan.
With it, I paid for my master’s degree.
I had made up my mind then, after such a prolonged life of strife, to arm myself with the only armoury I knew: education.
So that if life’s war showed up again, I had a fair chance to shield you and our son.
I couldn’t afford another episode of helplessness.
So again, in the ensuing years, I wrote, not to you, but to the professors.
Classwork and tests. Thesis and dissertation.
It has been the longest time. And they say absence makes the heart grow fonder.
I hope this stanza to you makes you smile:
If heaven had a height, our love would be that tall.
It would be from the clouds’ height that I would fall, for you.
Through the air, whose particles are many but less than what I feel for you.
I breathe for you.
And still, it’s you who takes my breath away.
Like you were an asthma attack.
Like air, I don’t need to see you, but I feel you everywhere.
In my packed lunch at work, or in the ASA song that plays in my car,
Or in the smell of popcorn that fills the air by the fast-food shop in Manzini.
