I reached out to grab a pen and paper to write you a love letter. But then I remembered; what’s the use of me communicating if you will only understand from your perspective. I loved you once, I don’t know if I still do. But once I did; I was madly in love with you. Now I can only recall the ‘madly’ part. I am mad and that’s why I can’t figure if this is still love or just vengeance.

I remember the time I used to fight over you. I would bleed and you would just laugh and chase me away. I doctored my wounds and would sleep in your cold bed for days after. You would return home apologising, giving me your sad sob story about your father never loving your mother.

“It’s in my blood and I hate him for giving me such an awful legacy,” you would say while you looked at me with a sad face. “I will change for you, for us. Baby, please,” you would continue with your puppy dog face, crying your eyes out on my lap.

You lied.

You did it again and again and again after that. The other day I cut my finger with a knife and my mother wanted to nurse me, but I ran off and made a big fuss. Every time she saw my blood and wanted to help I just turned away. Today I found the courage, because of you my mother needs to wear gloves to clean my wounds. I have HIV. Because of you I am shy to go to the clinic and wait till everyone is done then use the back door. I am pale. I am thin. I am not me, because of you!

Hide and seek. That was me and you. You would hide for days straight and I had to go and sell myself to have something to smoke; to snort. I would do it all over again because I forgot to buy some food. Yes I blame you for coming into my life and making me believe I could fly so high. But in so little time I would come back to the ground like a bird looking for its next fix, then fly away again. Your house was my nest; always dark with no food or love spread alongside the fireplace. Dead, like the mouse I found in your cupboard. But you found the most joy in that hell hole. You made me believe in an imaginative world that never existed. How blind I was. A fool. Your fool.

You slapped me on the same cheeks my loved ones kissed me on. With no shame, you would blame me for ‘Puching it’. I puched it for you. I was your problem, and I irritated you so you would slap, punch and kick the same body you would touch so passionately and make love to. The same hands that knew every route to my soft spots were the same hands that would cause those soft spots to bleed and break. You broke my bones. I would recover from the fractures and you would kick me out of bed for food. You only apologised when you heard me screaming too loud as you didn’t want the neighbours to hear. They never helped me anyway; just gave me a disgust look. Like a block game already built, you broke me down with one wrong move I made which was every time. I never did anything right.

“Why did you call me here, Jane?” Sam asked and looked around my mother’s house.

“I want you back Sam…” I said, embarrassed.

“After everything you have done to me, Jane?”

“Please, Sam. I can’t live this life without you. I need you back in my life. I love you!” I begged Sam.

After all was said and done I went back to Sam. Love is blind indeed.