the scars I remember you by.

Monday, what have you become?

My love, I can’t do this anymore. I am sorry that I can no longer wait for your return. Oh, how I wish we could turn back time. But because we only have today, Monday my dear, I have to break up with you.

Before you crumple up this paper and throw it, please continue reading because I want you to know why I’m doing this. Although, I have this strong feeling that you will not be surprised by my decision.

But in the case you do not care to understand my side, then my message is clear; good riddance.

I remember us meeting at the tail end of January, 16 years ago. When the air in Nakuru gets so dry that grass turns to gold. We met in a library, which is fitting since our lives unravelled like a novel - less like an Elizabeth Gilbert romance, but more like an Agatha Christie thriller. A convoluted mystery, centred on the breakdown of interpersonal relationships. A narrative filled with suspicion, double-crossings and the ever-lingering threat of murder-well-done.

You stepped into the library hall and as the door lazily brought itself to a shut, it let in a sweeping breeze. That’s what got me to look up. And as I did, I laid eyes on you. Wisely, you sat far from me, as if tempting me to approach - as if goading me to make the first move. But thankfully, I was saved by the librarian who had to rearrange my section and ushered me toward you.

As a superstitious man, I took that to be a sign to start a conversation. But I couldn’t approach a stranger. I had never made a first move.

The heat had warmed the room so much that I kept fanning myself with my notebook, my face sweaty like a man with a fever. I tried multiple times to speak and kick-start a conversation, but my mouth dried up as if in a nightmare.

So, thank you for making the first move.

I was such a happy man that later on after we parted ways, I walked all the way home, served myself a cup of tea and stared into the sunset. I gazed as it fell behind the hills, glowing in that familiar orange-gold-red hue and I toasted to it saying,

“I think I am in love,” I then began to laugh. “I am! I am in love.”

Yes. That one brief conversation is all that took for me to feel this way. A passing and shallow conversation that couldn’t even fill up a modern-day TikTok was enough for me to believe I was in love.

***

The soul is an interesting thing. In fact, as you walked in, I was chapters-deep in a book delving into Taoism. Since then, as you already know, I’ve dedicated incredible amounts of time to developing my knowledge in these ancient studies. Partly due to my non-ending desire of wanting to sound brilliant in a room. But mostly due to the agonizing quest to become a teacher.

As Naval Ravikant would say, old problems need old wisdom - and love is the first problem Adam faced.

In my findings of old wisdom, I learned the soul has been a topic of existence for years.

They dance within us. Some are waveforms of chaos. Maybe coloured red or an imposing Thanos-esque purple. Running through the mind to the heart. Bouncing off the corners in a fete of rage. Manifesting in the outer self as violent conduct. 

Some are soft. Like still air at the top of a mountain. Whose breeze feels much like a marshmallow-soft kiss on the cheek. These ones accept things much as they are. Absorbing the harm and hell of living. Bringing people toward them like a saving call. 

Then there are the free souls. Those that are capable of traversing culture, fashion, food, and language. They are old and familiar to everyone. Empathetic, caring, and incredibly determined in their causes. We see them, get inspired by them, and follow them like the sheep we are.

So then why, of all the souls I have encountered, the angry ones, the dancing ones, the mellow ones, the shy but defiant ones, the free ones, the troubled ones, and even the narcissistic ones. 

Why was yours the one I found hardest to let go of? 

Is it because of how you spoke to me first? Does that usually trigger dependency in people? Because your voice felt like butter had been poured straight into my heart, clogging the struggling organ. You smiled and pulled the chair for me. Immediately, I complied and slumped into it. The book I carried fell and slid on the table toward your side. Do you remember it? “Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.” I swear, the title could have been the definition of our love.

I am sure that your soul must’ve danced a little as well. Maybe not as quickly as mine - my face carries no favour. I mean that your soul must have wagged her little fuzzy tail for me during this exchange because I felt a connection. A soul connection. You cannot fake it. Maybe you felt it before I did and that’s why you even started the conversation.

Maybe not. 

If that was not when you connected to me, then I will stake my entire life on the moment your soul connected to mine. I will wager my head to a guillotine, on the fact that you must have fallen in love with me on that night we lay atop the trampoline. That starry Kirinyaga sky with the critters ringing through the lonely night. When I spoke of my dreams, you got lost in my eyes. You said nothing but kept smiling throughout.

Because that felt soulful to me. 

All this projection I am making is in vain. I know you loved me because you said so yourself.

Granted, you were on the third glass of margarita, the second shot of tequila, and two cigs, into your night. But I will never forget how soon after falling off your chair and breaking your heel, you pulled me in by my shoulders and practically shouted to my face…

“I love you! Aargh. I love you so much.” 

There. Case closed. Game set match. We have established fundamental proof above all that you loved me. This is important to my mind. Because when relationships go down into the bottom parts of dumpster hell that they often lead to, one forgets if love ever existed in the first place.

So now that we have established that your soul and mine have danced in this ethereal plane, answer me this, “Monday, what in the living hell happened?”

I deserve to know. Respond to this letter when you get the time. I have some theories as to why you turned out the way you did.

For starters, you were always one series of unfortunately placed events away from lunacy. 

You delved too deep into your mind. The parts that have been traumatized as a child and never got the chance to heal. You rarely accessed the parts that made you smile. I was never allowed much time with the version of you that pampers, and caresses.

It is as if the mask you wore in that library was dropped the moment we fell in love.

All I ever got was the version of you where your self-confidence had shattered like the many glasses you broke. You left me exploring entire rooms of your brain that not even you can have a look at. The shame, the pain, the fear, the self-destruction. This was my burden to bear. A perpetual purgatorial cycle through your moods.

Also, who were you really? Were you the funny nerd that loved the Marvel date I planned? The one that kept track of all movie releases and at times would beg me to accompany you to see them. Or were you the one who would act as if it never mattered whenever we were with our friends? The cold-hearted bitch that looked across the room to me and said, 

“How should I know who Ironman is?” And everyone burst out laughing at me.

It’s perhaps very virgin and stupid of me to remember. But it is the small things you know. The cookie crumbs in the long trail toward breakups. You switched up my reality until I was left to wonder if I had lost my mind.

I know you love Robert Downey Junior. I am as sure of this, as I am of the sun rising. Aside from him being in the biggest movies of our past 5 years, we literally bought matching t-shirts of him after watching Civil War.

But in front of my friends, on game day, you denied ever knowing any of these Marvel characters. Did it bring you shame? This doesn’t even make sense to me because what did you think pretending you don’t know these things was going to achieve?

These guys were my friends. Not even yours. Why does it matter what they think of you? Was it not cool enough for you to blurt out your impression of Hulk speaking? Huh? Because you literally said it when initiating sex.

“Me, want smash!”

It was not just the Marvel thing.

It was the double-sided, maybe bipolar, part of you. Do you remember that Thursday afternoon at Karura? When I had just been fired, and you were suspended? We were having the “shittiest day ever.” And while we had that walk to blow off steam, you saw a girl running across us in the park. I remember the core beauty of seeing you making the little girl smile.

“Let me help you with that”. You said as you knelt on the muddy ground to tie her shoe. And I looked at you, extending happiness from an empty cup. I felt more in love than I had ever been.

Well, that was to be short-lived because later on that night, you were the same woman that threw my antique ceramic cup across the dining room. 

“You’re just a useless piece of shit!”

Why would you even bother being in a relationship with me if you were to make things so heavy? Considering you were the one that asked me out!

“Hey, I kinda like animals too,” you said. “Wanna have me tag along?

“Oh, wow. You want to… you want to spend more time with me?” I said, barely lifting my eyes from looking at the desk. “I’m warning you…”

“What? That you are a serial killer?” you interrupted.

“No,” I said after a hearty chuckle, “I warn you that I’ll say a lot of random animal facts!”

“I don’t mind that at all.” you said, “not the animal nerdy nonsense. Please don’t kill me with the mating rituals of every animal we see. I mean, I don’t mind spending more time with you.”

You said all that just for you to stop responding to my messages one random Sunday. Apparently, you had taken off with some rich guy to Europe.

Argh.

You’ve done things that I wouldn’t even tell while being tortured. Not even while hanging in the hellish gulags of war while having my toenails pulled out. How would you drop everything for someone else? I am sure he was always in the background, while I danced to your flute like a cobra in the streets of Bengal. Claiming that ‘I held you back.’ 

Me?

The one you whispered to that I’ve made you feel free?

Me, hold you back?

Yes. I apparently held you back!

So now, what can you say about that huh?

I stopped you from experiencing the world and the splendours of men. I stood in the way of your lavish living in the bustling neighbourhoods of Lavington.

Is that what you accuse me of?

I am curious, please indulge… how’s that going for you? Is it taking you well? Are you happy now?

You’d say, “It’s none of your business who I am with.”  

But sadly, we have to go back to my birthday when you gifted me packed butter chicken curry in a beat-up plastic container and sat me on wet grass because you forgot to carry a blanket. And as I scooped the creamy curry with the naan you had baked for me, you said,

“I’ve never been this happy. And I don’t think I can see myself getting this happy with anybody else. Anyone after you will always fade in comparison. Honestly, I don’t think it’ll happen anyway. We are kinda like soulmates.”

Words mean something to me, man. Don’t just say things to people if you don’t mean them. Some of us have only these words to hold on to. Now, how will I ever trust again?

Maybe you left me because I was dirt broke.

Oh, I swear I hope that isn’t why you tucked your soul away. Because you had all the money in the world but look at where that’s brought you.

I’ve seen you on photo shoots in the streets of Prague. Posing in the gothic bridges of Europe. While that’s good and magical, you will have to pardon my hating here, but, what’s the point exactly? 

Is it because you couldn’t believe me when I said,

“I’d love to show you the world.”

Especially because when I did that, you couldn’t even care to listen. It never mattered much to you. Or maybe, you never cared to believe.

There are parts of you that you’ll only see when you’re older. Dark alleys in the background of your being where only age will shed a light over. Because these are the kind of things that I say to people and they smack their mugs of coffee back on their tables, look me in the eye and say,

“No way! The same Monday I know?”  

“Yes. Yes. Yes. That’s who she has always been.” I’d meekly say.

“Always?”

“Yes. All the time.”

The only problem with slowly hating someone you once loved so much is that you are always left unsure of reality. Sometimes our minds corrupt a good memory with hate. So maybe I have turned you into a monster. Just like a child would turn the bottom of their bed into the gateway of hell, I might have transformed my memory of you into my Baba Yaga. 

But you must understand, in my life’s story, you’re the demon that hides in the closet. I fear you and I shake at the thought of having you back in my life.

The cold pale eyes that stared into mine while you confessed to the infidelity. Your sheer disgust as I knelt before you weeping to pick me. You must have been drunk with the power of seeing me like a leper unworthy of touch.

We used to love watching reruns of “Love, Death and Robots.” And I cannot begin to explain the hurt that tore through me when I played your favourite episode, and your smile didn’t beam even once. 

I sank into a hell hole of compensation. Trying every trick in the book to get you happy again. To bring your soul back to me. Flowers at your desk. Kisses on your cheek. Good food when you stepped into the house. And tight hugs before you left for work. And every single one of these was met with a fading smile each day. Until I couldn’t even bring my hands to wrap around you. 

“Hands. Move to hug her!” I’d order them silently when you stormed into our shared house without even as much as giving me a stare. 

I still can’t take you to Prague. And I will probably still beg you to love me. But, hey, I stopped that thing I used to do when angry. Do you remember? That thing where I would punch a wall hard. Also, I don’t walk out of rooms in the middle of confrontations. I stand my ground more often these days.

And you wouldn’t believe this, I’ve quit the bottle. 

But before I dropped the drinking, I’d look into the bubbling beer and cringe at how much I followed you around that one time we went to a concert. You ducked and weaved. Like Mohammed Ali in the ring. Teleporting from across the tent into the other.

Was there no pride in having me at your side? Fool me one time, shame on you… Fool me twice, shame on me.

As you remained embarrassed to have me seen alongside you, I am the same man that proudly jumped into the ditch you fell into when drunk and scooped you up with two strangers. We then plopped you onto my shoulders and dragged your limp body all the way home. I fought off the stares of pity and the smell of whatever waters flowed in the ditch you fell into. 

“I think you should move on,” you said when I reached out on Instagram.

And I swat that response away with the vitriol I reserve for mosquitoes. 

Move on?

Is there a train I’m meant to pick that’ll take me there? Is there a map for me to chart out with the boys? Like Jack Sparrow on the seven seas? Is there a potion I’m meant to drink to put these memories away? What do you mean move on?

What makes you feel that I’m stuck? Because I’m finally letting these pent-up feelings out?

Move on?!

Also, when did we break up? I thought we were here for life. I always thought we were going through a tough patch and will come out of it even deeper in love.

But no, you want me to move on. Even if I still hoped for us to get one more chance, I had to face the facts that had been slapped across my face. You wanted me to find other people.

That would have been fine if only I were doing alright. My soul is a ghost town. Since you left, a couple of people have tried out the accommodation spaces I offer, but they don’t like the finishing. Others have a problem with my emotional plumbing. Some believe the place does not even fit community standards and I need a therapist to clear me. 

I say they’re just not the right people to pick up the space. 

I will not hide it, a massive part of my being wants you back to me. But I have to remind myself that my mind is only playing back the desperate moments. My ego is so bruised that it can only be healed by you returning to my arms. So that I can look at the world that mocks me and say,

“Not even the rich men of Prague. Not even her other moments of infidelity. Not her anger, nor her disdain. Not her doublespeak, nor her attitude. None of these things kept her away from coming back to me.”

But the ridiculousness of that is plain for all to see. This must be how our love goes. So, the only thing I can do is wish you the best.

And until then, I’ll keep on travelling through this space-time continuum. This linear path of existence. The ever-expanding universe that ironically always shrinks us. 

I will keep my head high. This soul chamber has one last tenant left. 

Okay, I hope you understand why I can’t date you anymore. This is it. I am leaving you. Relationships are filled with challenges. But they are meant to be challenges like having one person like chilli more than the other. Or having one person have allergies to flowers. But not a third of the things you have put me through!

We are done!

I can’t believe you. Because I would never understand why you dropped the ball this hard. Your new lover. That short 5’ 6” man. From the photos, he looked like a knock-legged Quickmart Johnny Bravo. How did you two even have conversations? Weren’t you taller than him?

Okay, maybe he owned a good ‘business’ and could take you to Prague. He has a wife and children. That is a father who looked into his son’s eyes and said,

“I am going on a trip kiddo. I’ll bring you games for your PlayStation.” then to the wife, “Baby, I have that business trip in Europe. Send me the perfume list you wanted.”

This is the man taking you on a tour. A person without honour to those he publically declared love. But you dream that he will reserve some for you. And I know the sleaze bag was wagging his tongue after every woman he saw. He must be convinced that money claims your body. So he has access to and from you, like a janitor and a mop bucket.

I wonder if you ever told him that you love him. Did he believe you? He doesn’t strike me as the man to allow such words through his skull. Probably because he didn’t come across as the sort to have been told good things.

I know you did not love him. Obviously, because you promised me that you’ll never love anybody again.

And secondly, perhaps more convincing, is because you dug a knife in and out of his beefy chest - a couple of times over. Monday, you were a lot of things, but I never took you to be a knife-wielding murderer. Not that you could not carry the traumatic weight of sociopathy required to kill in cold blood, but that poison suits you better. You’re the kind to place a dosage meant to bring down a rhino in the whiskey of your lover.

Repeated stabbings?

Come on Monday, how did you even know when you’ve done enough? I mean the body must have stopped moving to the pain of the knife. You must’ve gotten to a point the knife would go in and out of him like someone chopping down a watermelon.

Your case was heard and the world became aware of your screwing around. I was mocked online. I lost my mind a thousand times over. And now, I can only reach you through letters!

Good riddance, I say.

I am sorry. This is such a difficult thing for me to say. Truth is, I should have had a better deal out of this. I had dreams where you ran into our home with our children in tow. These are the kind of tragedies that even when I rock back and forth in my grey-haired days to come, I will look back and cringe.

Please understand that it is difficult to be denied the chance to at least try and see what could have been. I need to blame someone. Surely, there is some sort of justice saved out there for me? Because how then can someone come into my life, ruin my esteem, change my view of life, and disappear? Isn’t it only fair that I get to hurt them a little? How am I meant to just be okay with everything?

I cannot pretend to be.

So Monday, nothing has been paid off in this debt of ours. In fact, you have gone on and added more credit. This is not how a story should end from meeting at a library. If we had bumped into each other in the back alleyways of syringe-filled filth and men on their last days, then I could’ve ‘seen this coming’.

I don’t know how to wrap this letter. A part of me wants to keep writing forever. It is as if this letter holds onto the memory of you better than I ever will. My fingers keep moving to the image of us dancing slowly on the balcony of your Kangemi apartments. And the laughter that we shared on the road to Naivasha, is what keeps me from cursing more than I have done.

You deserved so much more from life, Monday. My God, you could have been such an angel if you wanted to. Now, I’ll carry the mantle of your memories. I will bear the torch of your existence. Soon, the world will forget about you as you age behind the grid irons of jail. But, I promise to keep the embers of your light burning a little through me.

This is the least I can do.

***

The library is closing - I decided to write from exactly the same spot we met. 

“Are you sure that book is worth the hype?” 

I have just been asked this about our favourite read, ‘Never Let Me Go.’ I am tempted to gift this girl our copy. Especially since she’s been placed beside me by the librarian!

I must go.

Goodbye, I wish you well in your stay there, Monday.

I love you and I fear I always will.