Sincerely Yours
Dear Uju,
I love to edit as I write. Love is not the word to use; it feels like something I delight in when I use that word; it’s more of an obligation for me. My inner monologue tells me how I put pen to paper is identical to how I express love. There is a constant need to get it right in one fell swoop. Professionals say you must iterate to gain perfection, but with words and the heart, taking your time to get it once seems like heaven to me.
Mistakes should not seem like they are unrelenting. I’ll obliterate everyone I’m careful enough to spot with my backspace. I’ll pull out my heart with apologies inscribed on it and change because what we have should be perfect. It should read smoothly and roll out the tongue with ease. And when a kid picks it, he should understand it because my words, like what I have for you, aren’t complicated. It’s simple. I love you.
When my mother prays for me, she often says, “You shall not fail; you shall not fall or falter.” I think I should adopt that before I pick a pen to write or decide on whom to give my heart to. You see, I make mistakes. There is a comma I forgot to put somewhere and things I ought to have said. There is a message that could have made things better, and if I had structured that sentence just a little bit better, maybe it would read nicely.
If I paid a little more care, maybe more people would take me seriously as a writer. Or maybe I’ll have a larger audience. Perhaps you’ll be by my side, and I’ll tell you the things that creep into my mind rather than wait until we meet in my dreams. I can go on, but I could have avoided this if only I reiterated, or like my boss will say when I delay work-circle back. But all I have are works littered with typos and a heart that calls out to you.
If you’ve gotten here, you’ll realise I do not learn from my mistakes any more than I can stop thinking about you. The truth is I’m scared. To revisit things is going back to make things right, and that means exposing yourself to things you did wrong. I’m sorry I put a full stop to our story when all it needed was a semi-colon. Maybe one day we’d have a sequel and Ọlọ́run, ma fi ìfẹ́ bayé ẹ jẹ́.
With all my love,
