When he stopped to catch his breath he decided to text Faith.

Let’s meet, next to the church.

Okay, find you there… she texted back.

As he paced to the church he fixed his sight on the ground. He came across this brawn grass that had lost its green. He realized that between him and the grass he could form a metaphor, for he was about to lose something he thought had become essential for his livelihood!

He reached the church before her. He stood up with a grin as she paced towards him. It was only when she quickly withdrew from their embrace that his smile fell to the ground.

He couldn’t swallow the storm anymore nor bury the agony within his cardio. He was still transparent to her too; she could see what he was going through.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Just fine,”

“Nna I can hardly eat Faith. The SMSes that you’ve been sending…”

“You may pardon me Love Bite, I should have never said it via SMS,”

“Yes it was never meant to be said at all,”

“No no, Bless, I meant what I texted,”

“Faith please! What have I done wrong? Didn’t I speak of everything dear to your heart? Tell me,”

“Nothing, it’s just…”

Deep pain grew obese in his heart. Giant silence stretched between them as he looked into her eyes and acknowledged that her jaws told truths. But why?

“You need to know that my love was a dew that lived in daylight and you are faultless to what I’m about to tell you.” She said looking at him. “Your love is gigantic and there is someone out there who deserves it.” He looked in her eyes quietly, “I am in love with another, Bless!”

All that love he had been daydreaming was switched with a huge sadness. He was at a loss.

She wrapped her arms around his waist and said, “We can find harm in things that built our mirth. If tables are one day turned against me, I shall blame no soul, for mine has betrayed yours. I feel like my heart dwells in an ice age and your warmth can’t cease its solid state,”

“They say don’t be deceived by a glittering package, for the real gift is inside,” he said with a tear trailing down his cheek. “No Faith, you can’t do this,” he said.

She too was crying. “It’s not my intentions to betray what we have vowed to each other, or your precious heart that I know loves me. Pardon me Bless, pardon me,”

She kissed him on a brow and walked away.

It was unfair to Bless, but it would’ve been unfair if she stayed in a relationship the existence of which she opposed. He watched her retreating from him. His jaws failed him for words. He then walked away but he couldn’t stop looking back. He too retreated to the little castle he called home.

That night the thought of her leaving him kept his eyes open to the night. As usual, he released his emotions in a poem.

Melancholy For a Lost Lover

Sight your reflection on my tears,
Be sightless not
To Hades’ horns on your head,
Now that he stole your sight
I’ll write this on a Braille System
Melancholy for lost lover

On Monday morning he didn’t’ get up for school. Goitsemang knocked on his door.

“Bless, Bless wake up! Bless, time to go to school, Bless!”

“I am not going, not feeling well,”

“I know what happened yesterday was not worth it, but you have to let it go, everything will be alright,” she consoled through a closed door.

“This has nothing to do with that. I said I’m not feeling well,”

“That’s surprising. Ma won’t like this,” she said as she left for school.

With his mother already at work and his father in some beer house, Bless was left alone with his emotions.

There was only one thing he could do that would take him away from feeling this way.

A glass of warm water and a teaspoon of a poison, Galephirimi, the sun doesn’t set.

In his room he took his phone and texted Faith.

If love has no poison then why is this one killing me? You are free from blame my love, this is the state I led myself to, for I had too much hope for what I couldn’t forever own. My scars are permanent no more, for my skin will decay soon. Though I may be mortal but my adoration for you is immortal, my love. Go and love him my love, go catch a falling star. I have fallen once, I can’t fall twice. Goodbye my lost lover.”

Then he sent his poem, Melancholy For Lost Lover, after the text.

‘A man has to be a man. When he falls he must stand tall and dust off that which led him to pity’ the poster hung boldly on the wall, behind him. He brought the glass of Galephirimi to his lips. He closed his eyes and saw Faith’s beautiful face smiling. He took a sip, then drank it all.

And he slept.

The End