Written by Anuoluwapo Oyekole

 

Dear Emoji Man,

Call me B.B.H (Bold But Harmless), never mind about my real name, at least not for now. I’m assuming you’re curious about me – who I am and my intentions for reaching out.

I haven’t told any of my friends about you yet. I just don’t think they’ll get why I am “stalking” a much older man and one they’d consider “nerdy” when all the people I have been with in the past are nothing like you. They know my type; I know my type and it definitely isn’t someone who hides their feelings with the one smiley face and rather annoying emoji that means nothing at all. It doesn’t say to me, “stop, I don’t like this,” or “go on, I’m feeling something too.”

Do I have a crush on you? I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t. What I do know though, is that I am fascinated by your words and how you weaved them together in that one book of yours I have been reading for the past three and the half months now. I am a fast reader, but I have been miserly with yours because getting to that last page is like ridding myself of something I have started feeling for you and I don’t think I am there yet.

Frustrating right? Unfortunately, resistance doesn’t go down well with me, it fuels my persistence instead (until, I burn out at least).

So, here I am writing you letters the old school way in the hopes that it might resonate with you, re-ignite some happy memory from your ancient past. Forgive my use of the for word “ancient.” I meant that as a joke and at this point you can insert your three annoying emojis on my behalf if you want.

I thought about dazzling you with a short story, then I remembered that prose hadn’t been my onions since I abandoned him; my first love, from my university days for poetry. Now, poetry came from a bourgeois home and swept me off my feet so well that I couldn’t resist his sweet blandish… But like they say, shiny things don’t last and no sooner had he given me the honeymoon of my life did he elope with another secret lover of his, Muse.

Prose never forgave me, you see, he swore never to take me back. I still miss him every single day and whenever I spot him from a distance with another woman, I feel a deep pierce; like a sword driven into my soul knowing that nothing, absolutely nothing I try can bring him back to me.

“You never know what you have until you lose it.”  Truth is, you know exactly what you had, you just never thought you’d lose it.

I also thought about writing you a poem, after all, I still carry poetry’s family name… but everybody knows we are only married in paper and he is always never really here. He flies around in his jet to various exotic locations with his woman; Muse of course. Yet, he refuses to divorce me for her. He comes back sometimes in short visits bearing gifts, he’d buy me my favourite tulips, spend a provocative night with me and by morning, be gone again. I honestly wish he would buy his freedom and never come back again or is it my freedom? It is worse to be the receiver of unresolved mixed signals and emotions than an outright rejection in unrequited love… Trust me…

More recently, I’ve been spending a lot of time with my childhood crush that never really stopped being there in every milestone of my life.

Letter (did you guess his name right?) and I have loved each other from day one at the play ground in our primary school days but we grew too familiar and have friend zoned each other again and again. Now, we are unsure if we feel anything for each other but no one knows me to the letter as much as letter does. See what I did there?

Letter is habitually there for me, he never judges me and I could lay myself bare naked in front of him and still not be ashamed of my stretch marks and mummy folds at copious crevices of my body and soul.

Therefore, I decided to write you in this medium with a sole purpose and nothing more; to ask you this question that has been weighing heavy on me. How long are you going to keep me stuck with responses that come only in emojis?

Yours Curiously,

BBH

Written by : PMA

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