This is the third extract from my series Family tales. You can find all the stories on my blog: http://inspiredyarnsofthemind..it/

Read other stories at:
https://www.nairaland.com/957742/family-tales-ode-mother
https://www.nairaland.com/957303/family-tales-quarter-hope

Hope you'll enjoy it. As usual comments for compliments, corrections and improvement are welcome.

[center]WEDDING DAY[/center]



Dear Love,
the day we have both been waiting for has arrived.
As I look at myself in the mirror in the regal white dress, I smile, wondering: “How did we get here”?

Boy meets girl, boy likes girl, boy dates girl and so on and so forth. Simply written, but hardly happens.

The first time I saw you, forgive me, I didn’t even look at you. I saw this stranger walking back and forth and thought: “Who is that”? Never mind! Not that I cared. My mind, soul and body were so far away then, secluded I’d say. I had long lost the hope that love would smile back at me again. Too early? Yeah, I was just entering my twenties and already I was so cynical.

(I laugh) It is said time has no beginning, no end and never stops its flow, but I have come to realize it does, in our minds. If you can’t hold time, you can’t see it, you can only feel it: what happens when your feelings get stuck? Whatever they perceive gets stuck with them, time included.

I was stuck in time. I couldn’t move on, I couldn’t even see you. All I saw was myself, my pain, my mistakes and my wish to redeem myself. Yet you saw me. Mesmerized by your smile, I tried to loosen up, just a bit though. I didn’t want to have other regrets. As sweet and kind as you were, you still came for and with love and I had vowed never to allow it into my life again.

Sweetheart those were sad days. In my blues I was short sighted and pathetically wallowed in my woes rejecting the gentle hand of a stranger who wanted to save me. What happened then? I don’t know.

Time stopped in my mind, but outside it was running fast and effortless. We struggle so hard to keep up, but it hardly hears our laments when short of breath we plead it to stop, stretching forth our hand in vain. I didn’t run with it, talkless of struggling. I was left behind. But today, today I am glad I was able to pick race again. It was tough. I was many miles back, I caught up. My secluded regions were freed of their chains and it was all thanks to you.

Once a stranger, then a danger, a risk I wasn’t looking for; now you are an extraordinary wonder of my life. I did feel angered at first. I used to say: “What does this guy want from me? Is he playing games. Then let’s play!” (silly laughter) I LOST. But I do accept my painful punishment: a beautiful wedding gown, a solemn ceremony and YOU.


Dear love, on this day, I do not come to make new promises. I needn’t a pastor to tell me to love you, honour you and respect you unconditionally till I run out of breath. I know that already and I have been doing it for long. This is not the beginning of our journey. We have long chosen our path, this is just a step after many we have made and others we’ll make.


I’ll love you in the morning, because you’ll welcome me to the new day with your tender smile. I’ll love you in the afternoon, because the sun will radiate your face and highlight your sincere expressions. I’ll love you in the evening, because, as the sun sets, it passes through your heart and reflect the pureness of your soul. I’ll love you at night, because all this will be worth living all over again.

So as I make my way to the altar, I gather my breath, suspend my thoughts and force a smile despite my anxiety, I already know why I am here. In my heart, before through my tongue, with all my strength, I say “I DO”.

Forever yours,
ME!


Continues...

KNOWING YOU


Dear Love,
days never passed.: they all looked the same. After he left, broken pieces of me where all over the place. No matter where I looked, memories of him were all around me: songs, words, places…living had become really difficult: pictures of him anywhere I went. My heart bled for it knew that past was never going to be again. Now he belonged to someone else. There was no place for me any more.

People don’t know. They see you smile, hear you laugh and say: “You are a clown”. Clown indeed! Couldn’t they see the sadness behind the make-up? I wish they knew how upset I was. But I couldn’t allow people to see me as weak. I had and chose to be strong. Even though loved disappointed me, I had to try and contain its effects. Those days were the saddest and around me there was nobody I could turn to. No family and my friends were like…whatever.

Then you came. Like the sun after a heavy rain. You cast away all the clouds. You were not announced by lightening and thunder. Only a rainbow testified your arrival and today it still beautifies the sky with its seven colours. Even though then I never saw you as the one, now you are my ONE and ONLY.

I still don’t know why you so much wanted to know what was inside of me. Could you see the sadness behind my smile? Or did you just think I had something interesting to share? Perhaps you like knowing people for who they really are, without the masks. I detest shallowness as well. I believe there is more to a person than the smile on their faces. Just one thing I found irritating: that was your arrogance and conceitedness.

You really fascinated me and aroused my curiosity. You wanted to know people, but didn’t allow people to know you. You must have thought that made you special, right? I know the feeling because I sometimes felt the same. I could tell everything about everyone, their most inner secrets, but they only knew the outside of me. I really loved the fact that you wanted to keep to yourself. I played the detective and discovered so many things. The more I knew, the more I wanted to.

My senses had long captured the danger you represented and were already warning. “Don’t let him in!”: they shouted once, twice, thrice, until they couldn’t any longer. True I was heartbroken, I needed someone to lean on, but I hadn’t become stupid too. No one knows better than me when there is love-danger in the air. Despite all this, I still let my guard down. The curiosity was so much and you were hell challenging: mentally, emotionally, physically and psychologically.

I know my senses wanted to protect me from another disappointment, but they failed. And, in spite of the disappointments you eventually brought to you, I didn’t shed a tear. I didn’t love you, wasn’t in love with you and honestly didn’t even want to talk about loving you. I felt bad when you “wronged” me because I thought you had disrespected me as a person. I didn’t have expectations from you. You weren’t a lover or a boyfriend. Now that I think about it, you weren’t either a friend or a foe. You were just you. Your lack of label suits you so perfectly: you fit into whatever role I wanted you to. For how long and how many times did we remain like this? We used to talk for hours on phone, laugh like idiots and play silly when we met. We were on the same wave-length. I had other people, guys, I felt comfortable with enough to do all this, but they weren’t like you. I didn’t feel like assaulting them and doing them silly like I had been starved for ages. But you always remained label-less, until that day.

You were like a sprinkle of charm and fun into an otherwise monotonous and monotone life. Then I never imagined you’d become mine, but I admit being very attracted to you. There was a lot of connection between us.

Funny enough, I wasn’t the type who cared about what people thought. I mean: “Screw them! It’s my life”. But I loved to hear what you had to say: as an adviser you were sometimes playful, sometimes severe, sometimes even hostile. I told you so many mental Bleep, but I never denied that you were SPECIAL.

The past was dark, the present was brown, while the future seemed to be pinky. All because of you.

Soon yours,
Me!


Continues...

Continues...

LOVING YOU

Dear Love,
I once wrote you a poem to celebrate you and all the affection that in you I had found. Then I hoped you’d forgive the simplicity of my words. If you ever got to read it. I appear as a child in crush for the first time and laughed sometimes as I noted down my feelings.

That poem contained all of the most sincere and strongest feelings I had ever had and they were for you.


Remember me as the one who loved you the most.
Even as the candle light grows weaker,
Melting it away in its length and life.
Time may be the worst enemy to passion,
But now it’s all we’ve got.
It’s just you and I suspended in space
And translated by the power of a never stopping time.
Then, now or later: it doesn’t matter.
The profundity of your eyes has sent me on rapture.
I am hypnotized by those wonders of creation.
How can a man like me, made of flesh and bone,
Have so much ascendance on me?
Are you an angel or a devil?
Whatever you are, you are gifted with a power
No mortal should be for its might and danger.
I am like a toy in your hands:
Move me, shake me, cease me.
I can’t fight back.
The marvellous sound of your voice is like that of a mermaid.
It silences and pauses everything.
Only my heartbeat pollutes it with its assonant rhythm.
Tum tum! Tum tum! Dancing to your melody.
You are Jupiter, I am Pluto.
I can’t help being close to you.
Physics explains it’s the force of attraction,
But, damn!, this is more than I can bear.
My desire of you is becoming my insanity,
Erasing my mind of any sensible thoughts.
I LOVE YOU!
My heart is shouting it, while my body suffers.
It hurts. You alone comfort my soul
And appease my pain.
If this is love, I have never felt it before.
So beautiful, yet so disheartening, agonizing and mind breaking.
My Love, there are words I’d like you to hear
And engrave in your memory as long as you live.
“I am the one who has loved you the most.
There might have been other women,
But since they are no more, I claim the right to be your most devoted lover.
For any love any you are offered, I offer double.
I am determined to remain the first, no matter what it takes,
‘Cuz to love you is an honour that I accept with humility and submissiveness.
Now and forever”.

Eternity is where we are heading to, but it’s also where we are already. Two lovers, holding hands, dancing and singing to this love song. The only music even the gods can’t resist. So why should we poor mortals do?

You weren’t, then you were, now you are and forever you will be.

Forever yours,
Me!



End.

Thanks for reading!