In that last moment, you pressed your lips on mine like they were made to say goodbye without saying it. The house beside us, Mr. Dugbe’s bare-bricked, half-built home, stood as a strange witness to the tenderness that bloomed and the tragedy it foreshadowed. You kissed me like you knew time was counting backwards. I held your face like it was scripture I was afraid to misread. And when you whispered you’d miss me with your voice breaking, and your eyes glossed, I didn’t know that would be the last thing I’d ever hear from you.
I remember your scent on my shirt as I packed my textbooks and your laughter still skipping through my thoughts like light dancing on water. I thought I was preparing for exams, but I was really preparing for grief. And when the call came, when they said “gas” and “fire” and your name all in the same breath, I didn’t cry immediately. I didn’t believe the world could be so careless with something so beautiful.
But then I walked. I walked to the park like I was walking to you. And with each step, my chest caved, the way your kitchen must have. My tears fell the same way your roof did; without warning, without grace. How could a kiss live in my memory with such warmth, while your body turned cold before noon?
Life did not even pause to grieve with me. It rolled forward, cruel in its juxtapositions; kisses and explosions, textbooks and tombstones, promises and pyres. But if it’s true that love immortalizes, then that moment by Dugbe’s wall still exists somewhere, untouched. And in that kiss, we are both still alive.- Jomiloju
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