"Just love her... Love will always win."
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong but rejoices in the...
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AFTER READING the text that he's received from Ndavi, Lawrence tucks back his phone into his pocket.
Ndavi ended up leaving his notebook back in the class and asked Lawrence to bring it to him outside Ushindi hall when Lawrence told him about it. Lawrence hadn't even noticed him leave while he lingered behind to talk to Hope.
Hope.
Lawrence murmurs her name into the evening wind and he listens as the flurry wind carries the name far away, probably into the heart of another mortal. Maybe, if the wind dumps that timid whisper— that Lawrence released —on someone else's soul, a light will break through in the person's heart, gracing them with this same hope.
It is just a name. At least it sounds like one, but the oasis of meaning embedded into those four letters—those two syllables —overflows maniacally into any desert thriving in the hearts of those who call it.
Hope. Hope. Hope.
A silent beep that indicates that the heart is still beating, that there's a chance of survival, no matter how small.
Hope, a fluttering feeling that drapes itself over one's soul, making one hyper aware of all the light that's streaming in. The light you didn't notice through all the tears.
Hope, the stroke of paint that's always on the canvas. It's the initial stroke and no matter how many strokes you paint right above that initial one, that initial one is always there — deep into the canvas but still always there. Maybe, to reach it, all you have to do is tear down and erase some of the strokes of fear, pain, guilt, unworthiness and right underneath those strokes, you will see it. Like a light inside the tunnel. A growing candle flame.
Hope, the threshing floor on which you come undone.
His hope appeared to him in human form, materializing right in front of him. It took him a long time to notice, to realize it, but now he has.
She is the threshing floor on which he will come undone.
Hope. Hope. Hope.
If anyone happens to take a peek into Lawrence's mind right this moment, Lawrence will never be able to live down the thoughts that are running in his head.
Oh, but Lawrence wants to sketch drawings about her, every curve on her face and how the curves dim or sharpen with every change in expression.
He wants to write books about her. Poems about her. About how she treads carefully on this earth as a tenant who's overdue and how he desires to settle all those debts —whether metaphoric or otherwise. How she makes the shadows, the ground, the trees her friend, trying blending into them. She doesn't know, does she? She doesn't know that if anyone was made to stand out, then it sure is her. Still, he wants to write about how she wears her afro crown on her head, rebelliously defying the laws of gravity.
