Dear D,

I sat atop my lover’s bed this last week and talked about you; the way you were in my memories, the way I remembered you. It felt rote, rehearsed. Like an outpour of thoughts that had been on repeat. Probably because it was. There is no space, no person I have ever settled into, made a home out of, that I have not remembered you to, my darling. 

He didn’t look at me in pity. Didn’t hold me like I was some broken thing, didn’t look at me like I was someone to fix/save/repair. It was nice, remembering you. We did that a lot, didn’t we? You liked to remember things that made me smile, and ugly laugh - like running away from a room because of a cockroach as big as the side of my head. I had called out the impossibility. And you had assured me that in one life, it was true. 

A pointless game, but we named it anyway. Infinities, you called it. 

“That has to be the silliest name ever,” I recall saying. I also recall the beginning of your speech being a sad smile and a head shake. 

“It is not. There are endless possibilities. Even doing one thing differently here can alter the trajectory of everything. There are infinite possibilities!”

All that was left was a soapbox, but I watched you in awe. Your rules were simple, almost nonexistent. Everything was possible. In some infinities, you were my father. In some, I was your neighbor. In others, I was a blunt you would smoke. In some, we met off some obscure dating app and tried to date each other before - always - arriving at the same conclusion - we were best friends, regardless of the ends of the infinities. You were always in my life, and I was always in yours. 

I'm always seeing you in other people. In my friends, the way they love me. In the color blue. In Nissan Almeras. It's no wonder I don't like Ibadan. You're in everything, sunce moje. Lately, I've been seeing you in myself. 

I am looking at my reflection in a broken mirror fragment now; my hair is oiled, and the little twists are springing up. There are things triggering me on my device, but as sure as that is my face in the mirror, I am reacting like you would. I remain calm, inhaling and exhaling air as my lungs permit. I have taken my eyes off my phone because I would much rather not become someone you wouldn’t approve of, swallowed down the barrage of anger that would have turned into speech, or a long winded message. 

You had no unkind bone in your body, and in you, I learned how to forgive and spill grace over everything. You are in the fact that I do not spill the secrets that lie with me. You taught me that lesson - having a weapon in hand, owning a weapon capable of great violence does not mean you should wield it, use it. 

You are why I hold some secrets, hold them to my chest like they are my shames. You would never ever ever use something that you were told in confidence against someone, and I am the same way now, choosing to allow the hits to come, letting the inhale-exhale of things ebb the pain of them out of me.

You taught me guilt, and perhaps I should have learned that on my own, should have always possessed it in my arsenal, but unfortunately, I did not, and fortunately, you could teach it to me. It was not hard - I remember you said that. I remember you said that it was easy because I was very sensitive. “I just showed you how to lean into it.”

Now I lean into everything. I feel guilt for things out of my control. Harm I didn't mean to perpetrate. I feel guilt for taking up space someone else would probably use better. I feel guilty for choosing my joy, and for ever thinking anything cruel. The sheer humanity of it all is pushing me violently in many directions, so I am smaller. You taught me guilt, and in this particular infinity, I wonder if it will ever end. If there is another one in which I am not an overachiever, and do not lean into feeling too strongly, so I can breathe. So I can live. 

Today, I played the game of infinities as I laid on my bed, deciding on how I would get to work. In one infinity, my first run at school was the last. And you would be telling me I was almost done with med school, congratulating me. I would be kind, hopefully, and you would teach me discernment. Teach me the places where kindness was a weakness. We would both be brilliant. And beaming. And alive.

Now, as I write, there is another infinity. You are the boy I met on my walk to school. A stranger. You ask me if I'm religious. I tell you no. You tell me you aren't either. We banter, and I find out you asked because of my pendant. I assure you that no higher power has claimed me as theirs yet. You mention something about how faith in something is present in even my absence of faith, and you would tell me to lean into it. 

I would recognise you from all of our previous infinities and agree. 

Except, our infinities were always lies to ourselves, weren't they? You are not the boy, and we walk past each other. I am ashamed to say that losing even the comfort of that infinity to reality kills me, and makes me wish for a new infinity in which I was in your stead, driving instead, or at least, claimed as death’s bonus.

The world does not understand me. I am on the road, hitting keys on my phone to try to explain you to anyone who will listen. You were a star and you just went supernova. Poof. Just like that. 

Stardust has pooled on me. Has pooled in my chest. To know you was to love you. To know you was to become better. To know you was to learn selflessness, to be tender, open. To know you was to love. 

I miss you, today. The grief is tearing at my skin. I am listening to Alessia Cara sing Wherever I Live. I am trying not to think about how you were my kind. About how there are only snatches of you in this infinity. I am not to remember that in this infinity, I am alone to manage all of these infinities. To create them. 

Every day is a new dream, a new hope. You no longer live here, it's true, but all I do is build futures for you, selfishly. Infinitely, you are around me. In me, on me, everywhere. I do not know how to forget. I do not wish to, either. I am stuck remembering, and what a comfort that is.

Love,

Modupe

7/3/24