Letters

image credit: Fabricio Prudente

By Osuolale Oluwatomilayo

I wrote to the beginning,

I thought of my childhood.

I thought of the days where all that mattered,

Was Mama’s sweet porridge. 

And the sound of my laughter, 

Of the days when my teeth fell faster than the rain,

Of the days when lores made sense.

I asked, “Where has the time gone?”

Who stole those monuments?

What happened to chasing the rain

And counting the rainbows?

If time doth skip,

Who then waits for man?

I wrote to love.

I asked it where I went wrong, 

What unspeakable things I had done.

I mourned the years I lost,

The ones that chased after my childhood

And left me a shell.

I wrote to love,

Yet I never heard back.

“Where have the years gone?”

If Mama be kind,

Have her mail me just a bowl of porridge.

I wrote to happiness,

And it answered not.

It turned its back on me,

Just as love did.

I asked for a smile, it frowned.

I begged for grace, it simmered.

I asked for a haven, it mocked me.

I wrote to remember the corn-glazed breeze,

To bask in the warmth of the scorching farm’s sun,

To behold the whitish tinge in the skies once again.

But I have been deemed unworthy.

“Oh, where have the ages gone?”

I wrote to life.

It heard me and said,

“If thou wishest, hold the hands of the storm.

Never let go, for in pain lies the smile you so wish for.”

Life, do I persevere?

For in the most gruesome storm lies life.

Who endangered the seasons?

Why does happiness lie only amongst turmoils?

“Oh, how the world punishes.”

I wrote to pain, 

“When does it end?

When do I get to smile?

Who stole the joys of my childhood?

The serenity of my beginning?”

I wrote to pain,

But it answered not.

Lest the world doth end,

Pain would smile.

For in my daze lies its joy.

Pain had written an end for me.

My unanswered letters have led to an end.

I wrote to the end.

I begged for peace.

I asked it to permit me some joys, 

Joys before I walk the other path.

I wailed, I complained of

The beginning that let out my joy,

Love that failed me,

Happiness that cast me into an abyss,

Life that spoke of dangerous storms,

Pain that sketched an end.

If pain does direct you,

Be kind.

For in you lies the chance of a beginning that once was,

A beginning that precedes an end.

If it all started in the beginning,

Let serenity be my end.