Letting Her Go

She refused to leave my room. Her sappy thighs packed on my bedroom chair, looking for another Dido song. We had argued the previous night. Her perfect scent hummed broken chords into my breaking heart. She was everywhere.

Another sleepless night dragged. She refused to leave my room. I could see her in that black and white polka dot skirt she promised to wear to the house we borrowed for a weekend. That day I made love to her from the door. She was a soulful panther who never ran out of breath, always ready to take in more of me.

She refused to leave my room.

Her laughter haunted my bedsheets. Sweaty pillows are hard to sleep on. I was losing my hair. Heartbreak is cancerous. I could see the evening I borrowed money to buy her tea. The day we booked a room down Accra Road for a steamy night after a wonderful time at Arboretum. She stimulated my mind. She set me ablaze with her charm. She fed me her girth.

She’d write poems when we paused love making. And God, her pancakes were heavenly. Our first date was on a Monday. The sun was out and she had that flowery dress on. The one I loved seeing in the photos she sent me with her mojo up.

The hair on her skin was pure brass. She deserved skilled hands to hold her. And an active tongue.

I loved that girl.

One day I found a letter she had written to another man hidden in her handbag. I went there to hide a surprise love note. I washed her feet in tears. I told her I wanted to stay despite the mess we both were. She wrote these words on her palms,

“Could we start all over again?”

Her breathless poise when in ecstasy pulled my strings. That girl killed me.

The night she told me her last goodbye was unbearable. I zombied through town wishing my heart was made of stone so I wouldn’t feel the heat that stung. But she was gone. This time for good. I could feel it.

I didn’t know people leave before they say. But who would ever have taught me?

Her spirit possessed my room. She refused to leave.

She’d ask me before a date, “What do you want me to wear?”

I found that sexy. It was new. I loved it.

She fought so hard not to run, but it wasn’t her fault that home wasn’t in the man she saw in me. There was something else she had to find. She couldn’t love without it.

I had never known letting go takes so much of someone. You recreate in your dreams what you know you’ve already lost. You turn back the hand of time to regain your peace of mind. But reality is nobody’s friend. She gives no shit who’s broken and who’s not. She just happens and doesn’t care what people think!

The pain in my throat could not go away. I walked for hours to try forget but no distance would sympathize with my throbs. My tongue fell sick at the memory of all the kisses she went with. The secrets we had shared. Promises we had made.

For a moment, I thought life was one big lie. A long heavy moment.

My ship sunk into depression that May. There were no more “I love you” morning texts or “What did you dream about last night?”

I just couldn’t get her off my mind.

Nobody teaches you where to go from here. You wander like a homeless child kicking stones along a road whose way you have no idea. You’re fine with getting lost since you’re not sure whether you still want to keep breathing or death should come pick you already. You ask yourself how it’s possible that you can love someone that badly and they just leave you like you were a stranger. But you remember the people you hurt and imagine maybe they should have killed you. You search yourself in that painful stillness. Your heart is drunk. And your throat wants to come out.

One day I could barely walk across town. My body was torn. Doctor told me I was overworking, eating poorly and not having enough water. The things you do when you’re trying to run away from something. A thing you can’t touch can destroy you that much.

And then I learnt I had to be strong for myself. You see, war never leaves you the same. Something changes in you. You become this thing you had no idea existed. A sense of wildness. You become a forest in a desert. And that time you let nothing mess with the habitat in you.

I fought so hard to let her go. I had to. My life was more important.

We met after a couple of months at my favourite restaurant. She wrote on her palms,

“I’m sorry. I did not mean to break you.”

I believed her.