After three years and a half.

i: everything that takes flight falls.

I have learned to love things and people the same way I love myself. Sometimes, it’s the calmness and chaos that resides in OAU, Ile-Ife. Other times, it’s the beauty of sharing my heart with another soul. Each day, I’m out in this wild wild world trying to give as much love as I can. Rilke, love is the only thing I know.

I met my ex in my undergraduate days in Ile-Ife at a point when I was trying to find myself, whole. OAU became everything I called and named beautiful. With it, I had a place I could love and a beautiful lady that I shared memories with. We were first strangers, then coursemates, then reading partners, then friends, then a love difficult to name, then lovers.

This fast-paced love, this beautiful thing, evolved within the space of three years, and on God’s earth, I am grateful I had this. Long strolls together from health sciences to Moremi, sharing boring jokes at Humanities, reading together at the dead hours of the night, stealing kisses at the end of Ed-Sheeran’s songs at ODLT, killing time at Erin Ijesha, praying, and wishing ourselves an eternity together at white wall. It was three years of bliss and beauty. But Rilke, love could break one’s spirit too

We became stale. Lagos did what Lagos does, gives and takes. We grew. We tried. We tried. I cried. She called it quit.

This time, I'm in Ibadan falling apart, writing as a form of therapy. My writing sucks, this quiet room that has become my companion sucks, this nostalgia of a place that reminds me of Ife sucks, this language and poetry sucks too. But Rilke, love is the only thing I know. And I hope it finds me soon, I hope it heals me soon, I hope it meets me at this rock bottom soon.

Rilke, I hope love brings something new, better and beautiful too. And when it comes, I'll still love without fear in my heart, recklessly and freely