OPEN LETTER TO THE BREATH THAT BROUGHT ME BACK TO LIFE

Last winter, I let my pen rest for a little while, but it seems the nib may have dried up as I nibbled on dark thoughts and anxieties which attacked my head, my heart and off to my every fingertip. Apparently tremors on your limbs could still render you paralysed. Or maybe I’m just a little insecure because sometimes these syllables do not feel sufficient. So, I apologise if I bleed on you too much tonight. It’s a shock that these words are not here to mock me, tease me and trick me into hoping I could appease thee. It’s been a while.

This is one is for you.

Hello, love. Nice to meet you once again.

Pause.

First things first, thought I’d let you know that I drink my coffee with milk and just enough sugar to wash down the bitter lingering taste of all the words I uttered in haste, or at least I used to. Things have been moving quite differently ever since I noticed how appealing the colour brown is to my eyes, and how rich unsweetened flavours are a delight to my palate, almost like a soothing caress on my tongue. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still a monochrome girl but earth tones do seem like home, especially the darker shades.

I am told I tend to turn the things I feel deeply about into prose and poetry, little bit of a beautiful tragic reality. I think it’s a fair reaction, especially when art makes a sudden collision with part of your heart. You are art, right on the front display of museums and the middle shelf of bookstores.

Resume.

Here are five random things I wish I could tell you directly but are best left hidden within the pages of my old poetry books:

1. You came into my life when I was moving in circles, searching for an oasis to wet these parched dried-up bones. And you were a well that stood right in front of me. Boldy. Unhidden. Wanting to be seen, commanding to be felt. So, since the desert was too hot, like a camel, I bent my head straight into your waters. I am still drinking; my thirst demands to be quenched.
2. I am certain God made you on a Sunday because He needed Sunday to rest. Or maybe on a sunny Monday morning, called it “moulding the best”. You are beautiful. Ethereal. There is a certain almost magnetic power about the warmth you radiate and that gaze that always lingers. I think Newton would be proud of our obedience to the laws of Physics because what I feel in my field is definitely not repulsion, it’s a classic.
3. I am starting to think that the candy that sealed our fate was foreshadowing how you’d eventually figure out all the sweet nothings nobody knew I wanted to hear and actions you never imagined I would fear.
4. I like you. A lot. However, but also, be that as it may, you have been woven into soft beautiful intricacies; a little frayed at the edges but still a mosaic that deserves tender handling. And I am a ghost town, barely anyone here, barely anyone there. I burn for you. Fiery, violent, untameable. I have stumbled upon intended casualties before, that is why I know it is quite unwise to play with fire.
5. I am grateful to you for waking up my pen and getting my ink moving. Thank you for the resurrection, the revival. But I haven’t left the graveyard yet.

.Mpho