I wish I never met you, but I don’t regret our love
A reimagined love story
Article voiceover
ORACLE CARD
Oshun Fearless Love
What if you kept looking at me like that and then I met your mother and then we were off to travel and explore somewhere? Us learning a new language and buying new books and records and things, talking about them, and our dreams, and our grandmothers as we strolled somewhere while the sun set into the back of our necks and there was music ascending from somebody’s someplace and you smiled at the way I smiled at the flowers. What if when I caught your gaze I didn’t melt but instead leaned forward? Sometimes I still live there. I’m at home and we’re resting with the tea I made after you’ve thrown us something good down in the kitchen because you’ve been experimenting and there's a new great idea on your mind and I’m a big fan of my baby’s anything. I’ve been looking at the way you laugh and how much more comfortable you’ve gotten dropping into your hips and swaying with yourself while you make your grandmother’s greens. I rise from the couch smelling the memory you’re alivened and come into the kitchen wanting to nibble on something and I touch you at your waist and move with you a little bit in the way that I tell you that “you’re sexy” and you blush and I feel like it’s for me and I squeeze you tighter and then you’ve thrown your head back onto my shoulder. I love the way we’re nestled there. What if our love was real? What if we didn’t pretend this time?
What if I never met you? What if in the fall when I felt springy and alive I twirled all night on the dance floor with my good girlfriend smiling at the phone as we took pictures of each other and I never once knew or uttered your name? What if that night me and my good girlfriend pushed up real close to feel the DJ set into our chest and I let myself get as low as I wanted to because my knees felt strong and my pussy wanted to breathe? What if I never looked up and caught you watching me? What if I never told you my zodiac sign, my name, or my birthday or let you get to know the waters that flow through me? What if I never baptized you with my love and instead wandered out the club, into the car, then found someplace for my good girlfriend and I to eat and to laugh and to kiki? What if she and I talked all night about our dreams and I told her that I knew that love didn’t have to hurt? What if I never lied to you to make you feel better? What if I looked at my eyes deep set in the mirror and admitted how unhappy I was trying to keep myself in love with you? What if I never had to look at my grandmother’s photo and hold my breath while your fist hung in the air above my head or what if I cussed you out every time you asked me how much I weighed instead? What if I never let you come inside my world to rest and cause havoc until you decided to leave? Would I still have my locs? Probably not, but I wouldn’t know what it feels like to be called “bitch” in front of the altar where I prayed for you. What might I have made with my hands in all this time that I have spent yearning for and grieving from our love? Today I curse and thank my imagination. For I cannot extract fantasy from the marrow of my memories.
