Five years ago tonight, I called you from a splurge hotel room in Accra. A little box with no windows but generous hot water and a dingy television that showed CNN. I went for a long walk through the streets to find a second hand English bookshop someone told me about, a papaya and real candy that began to melt before I made it back to my room. A boy gave me a bracelet made from shellacked seeds, for nothing. Later, I set my alarm, woke up in your evening with my bright red unused calling card and maybe I’d never been so excited to talk to anyone.
We were purgatory then, and now. I used to think of you on marathon bus rides. Watch dust settle red on to my arms like war paint and imagine you there. Or, simply, that you could hear me still.
Weeks before, I’d fled Europe for a place less familiar, less full of comfort. One that didn’t remind me of you - though it also did nothing to outpace you. Tonight, I drive home from dinner with friends who are more wonderful than I deserve. And still, there are conversations in my head I will only have with you.
Maybe there will never be any fence or foundation for us. There wasn’t then and we were done, for the record, and yet, you were still the one I wrote to in my little west african school notebook some nights. I keep the unsent letters amongst my notes to myself and you are just one red string through these 33 years that have fortified my mettle. But I have faith in the shelf life of my words to you and that when they must, they can be enough.
(via beenthinking)
Beautiful, Thanks.
