Still Love...
Can I build with you
Can I remind you that love chooses you even when you don’t choose love
Can I show you that it was worth trying again
Can I write the best love story ever told
With you as my muse
Your heart my home
Your mind my playground
Can I be your favorite shade of blue?
~Blue, Brittany K.W., July 3, 2021
Love is a constant even when you think it isn't. Love pursues you even when you don't pursue love. Love will show up for you in ways you've never expected. Love will heal you, teach you, cover you, make a home of you, water you, ground you... but even when you don't pursue it, Love does ask that you be open to it. Love asks that you take the risk and give it a chance-- even when your heart's been broken. And if I can tell you a secret, when you do that-- you know, let love in-- life begins to mirror the desires of your heart. Life will begin to remind you of how good it can really get.
--
Westmoreland, July 2024
"Look at her, all giddy and happy," said Melody, sitting by the river as she watched Imani get swooned by Prince.
"Look at the both of you," inserted Che.` "You're walking in love with the man of your dreams, and Mani is just dominating this situation. Finding joy in the middle of heartbreak. Freeing herself from people who mishandle her."
"Our little revolutionary."
"That she is. I never know how she does it."
Imani's back was towards them, but they could see her cheekbones rising to her eye lids as Prince spoke to her, gazing through her eyes and into the depths of her soul.
"So yuh mean fi tell me seh a beautiful woman like yuh get drop like a 'bad habit?'"
He whispered the question in her ear as he swayed her ebony vessel, his hands gently placed in the curve of her backside.
"Like a bad habit. Liked I meant absolutely nothing to her."
"Her?" He pulled back in curiosity.
"Yes," she responded curtly, before turning to walk towards the grass area that drew the line between Aunt Helen's restaurant's backyard and the edge of the eroded hill that was used as a diving board by the kids who loved bravery down their own spines and jumped into the river. "Before you ask..."
"I wasn't," he interjected. "Me nuh care fi know."
"Well, I care to say," she said, looking him into his eyes, softly yet stern. "I don't identify under any given title or preference. When love knocks on my door, I answer. But I will say I'm ignoring that knock if it comes in the form of another woman next go round. I am tired!"
The sound of his chuckle startled her before provoking her to laugh herself.
"Now yuh undastand why man run from woman," he joked to keep the energy light.
"Aht! Aht! Don't go taking it too far now."
"I'm sorry, you opened the door for that. But women can be... interesting fi deal with."
"I'd watch it if I were you!"
"I'm sorry."
The words barely made it out his mouth in an intelligible manner, almost being swallowed whole by the endings of his laughter as he prepared to ask a possibly weighted question.
"If I may ask, what happened?"
"I went to bed thinking I was loving her right, and well, I woke up to her gone and an italicized letter saying she was leaving the country for school or some culinary opportunity in Kenya the day I was leaving to come here."
"And nothing happened beforehand?"
"Nope, we went to bed happy, and I woke up alone."
She burst out laughing thinking about how diabolical the whole situation was, when she heard Melody yelling from the walkway leading to their parked ATVs.
"Alright, lovebirds! We're hungry and ready to go to the final stop so we can eat."
Melody was waving her hand in the air, as she and Che` prepared to walk towards their temporary vehicles, belongings and towels in hand.
Imani jokingly rolled her eyes, as she began to roll her belongings, while Prince voluntarily discarded of her fruit peels and chicken bones. When she turned around to grab them herself, she bumped into his chest, looking up to only get lost in his gaze.
"Ummm, I'm sor..."
"Don't be."
"I guess it's best we get going," she said staring at the floor, while biting her lip to withhold her inner thoughts from slipping out of her mouth.
He walked her to her ATV before getting on his motorcycle to lead the pack.
"Mi know mi just a man from the small village, and mi know mi nuh know much bout yuh or weh yuh go through," Prince began, as he opened her door, caressing her regard for chivalry, "But mi can tell yuh seh yuh a wah beautiful woman who deserve good love, and good love that stays."
"You don't have to..."
"If I lived in Brooklyn, I'd only pray that Jah would gift mi a chance to love yuh right, and I'd make sense of all your former loves failing you," he began. "But Imani, you deserve an up close love, and me cyah gi yuh dat from here. I just pray the right one who can arrives for you soon."
"Prince, I don't even know what to say besides thank you," Imani responded, holding all of her emotions together by what felt like a thin piece of string. "Thank you for dancing with me, seeing me, affirming me... thank you for reminding me that I'm worthy of love."
"Thank you."
"No. You don't know all the ways I've been hurting while coasting over the last 48 hours, but being here has been the healing balm."
"And you have gifted us all love-- it radiates from you. Maybe that was too much for her-- your love," he said with a sureness in his tone.
"Are y'all going to keep acting like we're chopped liver over here," asked Che` with a Black auntie's sarcasm-- potent in conviction. "I'm ready to ride off with no direction at this point."
Prince laughed before extending his apologies and closing Imani's door, before finally walking to his motorcycle.
His final words were creating a blockage in his throat. He couldn't help but to finish his statement as he walked off, his back facing her but his words profound as if he were standing before her.
"It'll drown the wrong people-- the ones who've never known such a love."
Once they reached the last stop of their excursion, where they'd have a vegan lunch before heading back to their resort in Montego Bay, Prince said his farewell to the women who he shared the last four hours with.
"It was my pleasure to guide you around the lands I call home," he began. "You are all family now, so come back and visit."
"It was our pleasure," led Che`, before the three stacked their own messages of gratitude simultaneously.
"Yuh lunch ova deh suh by the restaurant at the left," he said, as he pointed to a sage green cabin-like house structure. "If yuh wah use bathroom, it deh pon the right. Again, thank you."
The woman departed the common area in the grass before walking off to indulge in their first Jamaican vegan meal off the resort.
--
Montego Bay, Jamaica
The trio arrived back to their resort a quarter past four in the afternoon, exhausted and plotting on their midday naps before meeting for a candlelit dinner on the beach.
Che` was ready to break out in a jog back to her room, where her pillows were calling her name.
"I have a date with my bed. I'll see you ladies on the beach at 8:00 on the dot."
"See y'all at 8," replied Imani to a piece-sign waving Melody and a speed-walking Che`.
When she got to her room, the lights she had turned off were either turned on or some form of lighting was present in the room, as told by the shine under the door. She was convinced it was a result of room service turning down her room early, but she was wrong.
As she stepped into her room, battery-powered candle lights and red rose petals lined a walkway to a table, where a bottle of champagne accompanied a glass vase that beheld a flower arrangement comprised of 48 roses and perfectly placed sunflowers-- her favorite flowers. Beside the vase was an italicized typed note.
I know the last italicized note you received was from your ex informing you that your life and love was being changed without reason or warning. However, I wanted to remind you that love still chooses you and that you should still choose love when it returns. While I am humble enough to know I won't be able to prove how good love can be to and for you from here, I can only pray that someone shows up for you and loves you in a way I wish I could because I can only imagine all the love you really deserve, beyond the parts of you I learned and leaned into today. You are a beautiful woman, Imani. Just because your love drowns some doesn't mean there isn't anybody out there who will know how to swim in it and stay afloat.
I know you once went to bed with a lover and woke up without her, but tonight you'll got to bed with flowers and when you wake up, they'll still be there-- and they'll be there every day until you go home.
Take care of your heart.~ Prince
P.S.- No privacy boundaries were crossed in this process. I called your hotel, explained the gist of things, and asked for them to set it up in the room of a woman named Imani with an ocean front view-- I heard you describing your view to Aunt Helen lol I hope they got it right.
"There's no way! What?! How?!"
She sat on the denim blue couch across from the table with her head in her hands, staring at the flowers in wonder. Calling the local florist for a same day delivery in the span of three hours. Coordinating the setup with the front desk and housekeeping. Remembering the italics of the initial letter. Reminding her that somebody out there is suitable to love and be loved by her.
"God, I don't know who Prince is or where he came from, but send the duplicate when I get back to Brooklyn or even while I'm on the resort, please! Ya favorite daughter is begging."
She took a picture of the setup to send to the chat before she hopped in the shower to prep for her nap. On a high from the day, jazz was the one genre fitting to be the soundtrack for a shower that was set to be cleansing and watering all at once, so she put on the playlist she curated that was themed around Ellington and Coltrane's In A Sentimental Mood, and stepped into the marble wall, granite-tiled floor shower.
Once fully submerged under the water coming full force from the overhead shower, Imani let her tears fall in full unison with the streams of water. An act of letting go and surrendering, mixed with gratitude that all was still well.
"God, I thank you. Despite the heartbreak and disappointment I rest in gratitude for all of the ways you love me. For all of the ways you are building me up to be my highest self. For the ways you remind me that love chooses me, even when I can only see how love has departed from me, because even that is your redirecting me because of your love for me. Thank you for using strangers and those who know me best to remind me that I am worthy and deserving of love. Thank you for using me as a vessel to turn my hurts and lessons into stories and words of wisdom through Words by Imani. Thank you for your love and the safety within it. Thank you for choosing me to be a vessel. Thank you for making my life your playground-- you've been A-town stomping around these parts lately, but yet and still, I am still grateful that love flows freely here-- just like a river. May I always be like the crystal blue river I bathed in today-- free flowing, healing, gentle, soothing, and a safe haven. May my love spread as far and wide as the blue sky and ocean. May it flow freely to and from me. And God, thank you for Prince. May the love he speaks of arrive soon for me. And so it is. In Jesus' name, Amen."
--
So Beloved, I hope that you always allow love in and let it exude from you, even when you get hurt in the process of loving. May you never give up on love. May you never stop choosing and be chosen by love. May you never allow experiences with those whom you may have once loved deter you from all of the possibilities in love. Love is healing. Love is a good and sure thing. And when it's right, love will remind you of why you chose it in the first place.
Talk to you soon. xo- BrittanyK.W.🌹