10 reasons why we failed at love.

1. I was voiceless because I didn't want all my crazy to send you away

2. Because you liked interesting people and I was a desert with no jokes

3. Being with you only made me feel lonely.

4. I let every feeling fall out of my mouth too carelessly

5. Because I'm a lover without a lover.

6. I made a home out of you and you didn't want to stay.

7. I was insecure, counting all your girl friends.

8. I deserted praying for stalking you on instagram.

9. I spent too much time thinking of reasons why we wouldn't work.

10. I was too needy to live without you.

9, September 2014

Sometimes she let her mind deceive her

that yes, her body was something she could be generous with

not like her heart, no

not after him.

Busayo presented to her wretchedness to every man she met

her soul as loose as her legs

confused and open to young men

who didn't know her name

Still she held words beneath her tongue of

confessions the length of time itself

Sometimes she would think she threw the words out

but they remained at the back of her throat

She prayed

For the past

so that just maybe she would have told him

how she loved him and then how she unloved him

How he made love so small, as a fantasy

Even now

these words threaten to break each tooth in her mouth

to find him again.

03.09.2014.

Jason thought of Ada again. It was all he did these days. It was all he did since she left.

The contrast of her brown cocoa skin and her white teeth.

She barely smiled but when she did,

he felt her warmth flow through him

She was timid and reserved.

It was what interested him

She would say in her tiny voice,

"Females in my place are seen and not heard" and smile shyly.

She was his mystery,

going through life with a heavy heart and a closed mouth

She hardly said anything about where she came from,

but he knew she was the last daughter of her father's first wife

And he knew she was betrothed to marry a friend of her father's,

an old dog with a shrivelled penis.

It was what she got for being educated,

for spending so much of her father's money on an 'unnecessary' degree abroad.

He knew she spent most of her nights sobbing into her pillow when she thought he was asleep.

With Adanaya, it was hard to understand his feelings;

Overwhelming and Deep.

He had never seen anyone so vulnerable and exposed, so unprotected,

she had so much love in her heart to give,

loving so selflessly regardless of how her world hurt her.

He wanted to protect her, to give her her own life,

a life she never owned.

But then Christmas came along too fast

and here he was in lonely apartment

getting irritated over visual images of Adanaya's traditional marriage in the village.