Scarlet Red

Falling…

Of the many things imprinted on us by nature and society…

In the traits and habits that we acquire as we grow, love is one of them.

It’s not taught per say nor is it described in the most astute of words

It’s more of an experience, something we live through that either hollows you out or fills you to the brim

The affection of a mother to a newborn, the tenderness of a 4yr old to his newly born baby sister

Or the weight of fists landing relentlessly as if to say louder what kind words couldn’t

But we humans question everything…

Label things we uncovered to be our inventions as though we made it,

But not love, not the mystery of affection that goes on between a willing man and a found woman

It’s the literal equivalent of asking God, ‘What did you put in your stew?’

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But I’ll not be vain

I didn’t invent her, I found her

And since then have daily run out of words to describe my affection for her

On a cloudless day, she was to me the cloud the size of a human fist

And I, Ahab, king of the desert, my plants and soil knew not love or its moistness

She was what I didn’t know I needed, the other half of my soul

I didn’t understand longing or desire or that a soul could find itself in another’s

I was Manasseh in a foreign land, finding solace in God’s house when I saw her

Now in retrospect, I believe this world was made so I could find her

There’s this weight in my chest whenever I think of her, this yoke—light and easy…

This heat on my insides, as I transform myself to become whatever she needed me to be

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Sometimes I feel like a ship sealed in glass, your red scarf knotted round my mast.

My people would say you’ve been bewitched, you’re living a lie

But a lie unbroken to the very end would be a truth, my truth

She has wrapped me round her, blurring the lines were we meet

There’s not much of me or her but an ever growing patch of us

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When the angel of death passed over Egypt and the lintels were painted red, dripping with the blood of rams, was it duty or love?

When Rahab hid those spies was it treason or love?

As she hung the scarlet, red rope on her window to keep her family safe was it betrayal or love?

And if like Christ, I hang on a cross,

Red whipped, scarlet ribbons flowing from my side, wrapping round my thighs, pooling at the floor

Grunting in the sheer ecstasy of turning water yet again to wine

A celebratory gesture of my overcoming, in defiance of the last thing that stood between us, would it be death or love?

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I found her in God’s house, admist the numerous soft padded red chairs and decorations

Would you call it love or chance?

I recall worshipping on my knees, laying still on that red carpet begging God for what I couldn’t articulately describe

What I didn’t know was you?

And when He answered little did I know that the answer came wrapped in you, in flesh and blood

Little did I know that you were the myth I had worshipped for so long

And now?

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All I want is to be all I can for you.

To make you happy in this life and the next,

To lay down my life, to die for and yet live for

The prayer I once whispered in faith now standing before me in scarlet and breath

I understand now why Lana prayed, ‘Dear Lord, when I get to heaven, please let me bring my man…

A toast then to the one I love the most in the whole wide world

Yes it’s rightly concluded when they say love made hang on the tree

But I say it’s love that made him, that made him come at all

Yes it took on the form of suffering, of a short but well lived life, but underneath it all was love

This same love I now have to share with you, this same love I give you

Happy Valentine’s Day ❤️

NB; Pray tell, how did you spend your 14th? What was most memorable in it to you?