Eclipse of the Heart

It takes one matchstick to bring a whole building down in a inferno . For me it took the fragnance of a certain cologne and the memories were invoked. The cologne I woke up to and slept with in my bed sheets. The smell of that cologne awakened memories long forgotten, echos of those long ago moments jarred my mind.

Suddenly being forced to swim once more in the tidal stormy waters of the past, I walked down that deserted lane with attitude of a soldier returning to the battlefield. A battle I know I never win. The problem with such is that there’s no filter or fire wall in the head where you’ll have the option to chose the good ones and discard the bad ones, they both come in plenty and there’s nothing, absolutely nothing you can do about it.

It’s like a cancer, starts slowly and there’s no full stop to it, no commas either. It starts as a spark in my heart, tingle on my fingers and it’s like I’m nervous not in a bad but a good way, I can’t complain about it. It washes over me like the cold shower I so much hate taking in this cold July season and it leaves me with an overweening unrestrained joy. The feeling is pleasant. It is like that advert that pops up when you’re on youtube and after 5 seconds it’s gone to wherever it goes. It lasts that little.

Prudence. The urban dictionary meaning puts it as careful and sensible marked by sound judgement.

She was careful and I guess that’s why she left. I still have no idea whether I was care less or carefree. Talking of being sensible, she was the only girl I saw fit to install her as my Mikai. And you know what, she left. Yeah leaving like packing up her things, staring me in the eye, then took a 180° turn, and left without saying a word. See you later would imply there was going to be a next time and goodbye is for children who leave for school in the morning.

She let me read her back, head held high, what I did not see was her eyes, whether they were watery or as dry as the wells in Kitui. She shut the door behind her, infact banged it and then and there I knew, there was a closed chapter in my life. Life is a book I know, when one chapter is bad, we don’t close the book we open a new chapter. There’s no way my book will continue without that chapter, how will it continue if the main character is missing.

As a kid, I used to look at my best photographs. The ones we rarely took on Christmas with a new set of oversized clothes and trendy rubber shoes. And with time, they would get torn, crease, get bleached and finally lose that spark. That’s the mindset I had with Prudence, the more I visit our memories, they’ll fade away and it will be like it never happened. I was wrong, it was like I was hitting the rewind button. Like I said, they all flow in so I stick to the good old ones to soothe me when the tragic ones threaten to erase all traces of my sanity.

Relationships exist but I’ve come to learn they were never meant for people like me. She was the real deal, like everything you could ask for but what happened? I screwed up, I’m not talking about screwing her, that’s a different story but I screwed up big time.

Let me not exhume what transpired between us but it hasn’t been a walk in the park like I thought. The regret would creep in stealthily, such as when I’ll be listening to a favorite song or in the middle of a movie. It would ooze to the subconscious mind and demand to be reviewed again.

She has no reason to call or text me at all. And I have no one to shift the blame to. I blame myself. I own this shit. I tried I swear, to be good, to show how much I cared, loved her but it takes one flick – I’m cold and on my own again. I let her down, quit the ‘we‘ thing. Instead I show the cowardice of a small child, hiding in the closet in fear of a monster in his head. Not that I did not need her love, I needed her more than anyone else, what I never knew is how to ask for it. I was afraid of the heartbreak, what bad might transpire between us forgetting she made me feel like I’m in cloud 9 always.

Let’s assume we meet, I see you melt out of a crowd somewhere in town 5 years after we last saw each other. I’m assuming it’ll be difficult recognizing you cause you’ll have grown more beautiful but even in darkness, my instincts will spot you. Then you come forward with the intention of kissing me, cross my heart and hope to die, I won’t resist it. It’s not that I miss you but I really need a part 2 of the good moments we had together.

Baby, please be like a tortoise. Retract into your shell. Come back home. I promise I’ll make it right this time, to anyone else, you’re just a normal girl but to me, you’re my everything the vibranium that feeds the arteries of the life I live.

Take that path, the muddy one. The one you know every rise and fall in it’s path, it hasn’t changed, it’s still the same way you left it. Come back home. Love and warmth awaits for the endless days you missed.

You can always come home no matter how many years you were away, all you have to do is knock. Doesn’t mean it’s gonna be easy, regardless of what has happened or how many miles you were away. Just knock, don’t think of what you’ll say, don’t give any excuses, leave no room for explanations. Just come and after we hug, we’ll know what to do then.